Torn

I've been contemplating a lot recently on God's view of deafness. For those of you who don't know me, or just didn't know this about me, I have been studying American Sign Language for about a year and a half at my college. These classes fulfill both my foreign language requirements and my cultural diversity requirement, because in the classes, students are taught about the Deaf culture as well as the language of the Deaf.

First of all, I must say that the Deaf culture has one view of deafness, and then there is another view that the Deaf dismiss. The first is the cultural Deafness, and this is where the capital D comes in: when someone is culturally Deaf, it means that they cannot hear and they are proud of their deafness {the physical non-ability to hear}, their sign language, and their culture.

The other perspective of deafness is the medical perspective, that there is something wrong with the ear or the nerves around the ear, and that something should be done in order to fix the individual's hearing so they can be normal. As you can see, the Deaf culture dismisses this medical view of deafness as an insult to the core of who they view themselves as! How offensive for someone to tell you that there is something WRONG with you, that you need to be FIXED!

My struggle as of late has been finding the Lord's perspective. I'm trying to leave the culture and the feelings and all the individuals' personal preferences out of this, and just hear Him. But at the same time, He loves all those individuals and made them perfectly how they are. What is "normal" anyhow? Who decides what normal is? Are we too insecure with ourselves that we feel so threatened when someone else is comfortable with their differences? Why does everything have to be uniform and the same? As you can see, I don't have all the answers. I haven't heard a voice from above saying that this way or that way is right. I don't know what His perspective is on deafness. All I know right now is that I need to keep seeking Him and His heart, and as I get closer to that, revelation will follow. If you have any thoughts, ideas, or resources, please post them below! Thanks.