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Connections are what life on this planet is all about, don't you think? Connections with God, family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, pets, on-line strangers and so on. We're all forming our personalized web of connections, or relationships, and that web changes every day. It's like a spider web blowing in a breeze, that gives and takes a little, sometimes detaching one silky strand from it's anchor when the tension gets too strong.
Social networking is an exciting, but ever-changing way of bringing some of those connections to life and keeping them stronger. I've personally recruited many of my friends and acquaintances to Facebook, but as the novelty is wearing off, those who aren't serious about getting on-line for anything more than emails have "dead" profiles. Personally, I think they're the ones to lose out on the fun and satisfaction of new, renewed, and closer relationships with people, but I understand being swamped with life and new technology. It's hard to keep up.
But while I was jogging yesterday morning, I passed a sign that alerted drivers to an area with a "hearing impaired child". I immediately wanted to know where this family was and what was the child's situation. I thought there might be a way I could help them understand cochlear implants if that was an option for them. I didn't even know these people, but because of a shared challenge, I felt connected to them in some way.
Just last week at a training seminar for youth workers, the speaker introduced himself and told us about his wife and three kids, the youngest of whom was born deaf. During the coffee break, I met him and told him of my deafness and the solution that bionic ears have been for me. I encouraged him to pursue his research in that area as quickly as possible, since his 5-year-old is already reaching the post-lingual stage of language development where adaptation to C.I.s becomes more challenging, needing speech therapy. I don't know whether he'll follow up on the contact information I gave him or not, but after that, I knew we'd connected on a different level.
Last year, I received an email introducing me to a Ugandan family whose daughter was also born deaf. The couple had contacts with missionaries who were friends of ours. They told this couple about cochlear implants and my experience, and shortly thereafter, a travelling medical team gave them a contact Stateside for hearing evaluation with someone they knew who performed cochlear implant surgery. I recently received an email letting me know that the little girl has just been implanted in Massachusetts, courtesy of the Christian surgeon who had compassion for their case.
I wonder that the more areas in our lives where we've been touched by tragedy and struggle make us better able to connect to people struggling with the same. In that way, it's a blessing to persevere through the struggle, knowing that later on, you might be able to make someone else's journey a little easier.
I know there are also times when you've reached the other side of the struggle, or perhaps the struggle continues indefinitely, but you don't want to be reminded of it in your life, so it's better to pull away and detach. Someone close to me who had breast cancer 5 years ago is not at all interested in marching in 5Ks to raise awareness of cancer. The big "C" is something she has survived at the moment, and doesn't want her life consumed by worrying about it or meeting other people who are in that struggle. To some this might seem selfish, but to her it's mental self-preservation.
Now with a hearing challenge, it's easier to play shy and "keep to myself" if I'm not sure that I'll have anything useful to say or if I lack the courage to put myself out there. But there are times when I know I'm being led to take a step out toward making a connection with someone, and I'm rarely disappointed that I followed it. While some people are intimidating to approach, I think everyone is looking for connections in this world. May they be increasingly positive and grace-filled.
(By the way, this photo was of the boys and me heading to Michigan for Grammy Maire's funeral 2 weeks ago; a temporarily broken connection which I look forward to renewing someday.)
