Ch. 1, Pt. 1: My First Dance with the Dark
Molly Belle
My apartment on campus was packed up and clean, ready for the final walk-through. I had finished all that my classes required of me days ago — final projects, papers, and exams. I was exhausted, but feeling accomplished. And anxious to be back in Florida for the summer, eat home-cooked meals, and sleep for DAYS!
Before we left for the airport, I just wanted to brush my teeth and I’d be ready. It was in that moment — brushing my teeth — that my right ear started crackling. I heard loud static out of nowhere, but only on one side…
I hoped it was like one of those worrisome feelings you feel in your belly sometimes (appendicitis?!?) that ends up just being gas. “It will probably go away on the way to the airport. Try not to think about it,” I told myself.
Well, it didn’t go away. Instead, I kept feeling worse and worse. Dizzy, sleepy, and like I was underwater. I was floating through the airport behind my roommate, making no contribution to decisions or the search for our flight to Tampa. I was lost in my own groggy world.
I fell asleep as soon as my butt hit the airplane seat . Next to a stranger at that (not like me at all)! My instincts were telling me to sleep it off, so that’s what I did! But, no amount of sleep made me feel better. My body was not healing itself.
It must be an ear infection, he said. Take this antibiotic, he said.
Weeks later, after no improvement, I went to an Ears, Nose, and Throat doctor (an “ENT,” I came to learn). He gave me two rounds of oral steroids, which would *hopefully* be able to reverse my hearing loss “after all this time.” Then, I went to an Inner Ear Specialist who advised that I have steroids injected straight into my eardrum in a last-ditch effort. Well, that was a terrible idea, as you might imagine. But I tried it — three times!
In the end, I was diagnosed with Sudden Hearing Loss. No joke. And it was irreversible, severe hearing loss, meaning that the average hearing aid would be useless to me, as it would only amplify static.
The worst part was, they didn’t know WHY. Maybe some virus? Maybe stress?
This was an unexpected turn of events, and I didn’t quite know what to do with it. I needed to have ANSWERS for things. I preferred to keep my experiences and beliefs in NEAT AND TIDY CATEGORIES.
I had never needed to visit a doctor called “specialist” before. I never considered that my primary care doctor might misdiagnose me or that there were some things doctors just couldn’t figure out (case in point: “sudden hearing loss”).
It was a whole new world of questions, gray areas, and UNCERTAINTIES…all things that made me uncomfortable. Especially as their implications spilled into my rock-solid assumptions about God, prayer, and being a person of faith.
Transactional Faith
I came into this event unconsciously believing that my life had been going well to that point BECAUSE I had been doing all the right things. My understanding of faith was transactional; an IF, THEN equation: IF I seek God’s will for my life and do my best to follow him, THEN he will keep me safe and bless me.
I also had a weird, arrogant assumption that I (a pastor’s kid) was under some “heavenly protection spell,” shielded from the bad stuff of life. Like my family and I were immune from suffering and death, because…what would God do without us?
I didn’t know I held these naïve and self-centered illusions as part of my worldview until the Rude Awakening of hearing loss. Then, I had to reckon with the truth of how small and unremarkable I was. How vulnerable I was. How out-of-my-control this situation was.
Waiting for a Miracle
Barely a legal adult, losing hearing in my ear was my first real “trial.” I wanted desperately to make sense of it! So, I pulled an all-nighter to read every single instance of Jesus physically curing people in the Gospel of Matthew (as you do, if you’re an overachieving child of the church) and I prayed for it with all of my heart.
Would God cure me? It seemed like He SHOULD. It seemed like what a Good God, who cared about me, would do. In my mind, it seemed like a logical way for God to advertise his power (I would obviously give him all the credit!), and would provide an actual reason for my otherwise random “affliction” (because “everything happens for a reason”)! Plus, a TON of people were praying for me, AND I was expecting it “in faith.” With all of these variables plugged into the formula, I had to be the perfect candidate for a supernatural experience! I was SURE it would happen!
There was even one day I thought it DID happen — the miracle! But it turned out to be a false alarm…
Oh, well. “God’s timing is not our timing…”
Meanwhile, I projected the “faithful-Christian” image that said, “I’m A-Okay! Trusting God over here!” And it was pretty easy at first since I had more than enough spiritual language at the ready (to keep the unwanted stabs of doubt at bay)!
I believed that eventually, I would be able to make sense of it all — through the Bible and filtering my experience through “God’s plan.” I thought that if I kept asking questions, kept asking “why?” I would find meaning in the pain and come out the other side with a great “testimony”!
But, the questions did not lead me immediately into the light of day — with answers and clarity and resolution. Instead, each question led me to another question, which led me to another. And down, down, down, I went.
Spiraling into a darkness I had never anticipated. A darkness I would have rather avoided. A darkness that gave me the willies, to be honest.
This was my first dance with the dark…a dance I would learn well. And now wouldn’t trade for anything.
Initial Qs for your reading:
Based on what you know so far, what would you say “stopped working” in my life to trigger this crisis?”
How does pilgrimaging through my story make you feel?
Defensive? Worried? Seen? Less alone? Curious?
