Chaplain's Corner

August 2005
 

“In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God”

John 1:1

In the months after my brain injury in 1980 one of the tasks I had to relearn was how to write. I lived in North Carolina when the accident occurred, but spent the last four weeks of my inpatient hospital stay in Akron near where my parents lived.

My girlfriend lived in Charlotte, N.C., so this provided the perfect opportunity to practice writing. Once out of the hospital I wrote her every day that summer. I was shocked later when she showed me some of the letters I sent. At first they were so sloppy and all over the page it’s a wonder she could even read them. As the weeks went on, however, my thoughts became clearer and the writing easier to read.

Communication is a wonderful gift. Usually after brain injury, however, our ability to share through what we say or write is impaired. Don’t you hate it when you know exactly what you want to say to someone and you forget half-way through telling them? I used to get very angry at myself when a thought simply vanished in the middle of a conversation and I felt that others were looking at me thinking, “What a dummy!”, or worse. The worse was usually what I said to myself when forgetting. This heightened anxiety made it even harder to remember, and it all became a viscous cycle of beating myself up.

Some years after the brain injury, I learned to be easier on myself and accept many of the challenges of memory impairment. Then, when I started reading and studying and praying through the Bible, I realized God is in control over all things.

In the verse from the beginning of John’s Gospel above, the Word is equated with God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. As I began to understand more about the Lord and His love, I realized that as the Book of Genesis reports, God spoke the universe into existence. And, He made us in His image.

So, if there are times when you feel frustrated and angry that your memory fails to serve you well, remember that the God who created all things loves you without fail.

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