So Beautiful

Jun 23, 2024 | by The Fellowship

As I was growing up, my mother always prayed: “God, please give my daughter a passion and a career that will work for Your glory and Your mission.” When I was in the second grade, my teacher would have us do spelling tests in sign language as well as writing the answers. This sparked my love of the language -- it has always seemed so beautiful to me!

When my parents got married while I was in junior high, my new stepsister and I signed a song during their wedding.  This deepened my love for the language, and I began to learn to sign as many worship songs as I could.

In college, I elected to take American Sign Language (ASL) classes as my foreign language. During this time, I also started attending a deaf church.  How very much I learned from these amazing people!  Deaf worshippers do not pray with their heads bowed -- but with their hearts bowed.  That is because in order to see the signing of the prayer, they need to look up. So, with their hearts bowed, they pray with their eyes looking up to their Lord. This was such a novel concept to me, and I found myself more connected to the Lord by praying this way.

At the deaf church, we absolutely sang worship songs. Sound speakers were placed throughout the aisles of the church with the bass turned all the way up so that the congregation could feel the beat. Every single person signed with their entire body as they fully worshipped the Lord. Learning to sign in this beautiful way, by using my entire body to glorify the Lord, brought more closeness to Him than I had ever felt before.

Two years into college, I transferred to nursing school, and I could no longer take my sign language classes. So, I switched back to a hearing church.  However, I continued some of the practices learned at my deaf church.

After graduating, I served the Lord as a Pediatric ICU nurse for nine years before becoming a Pediatric Kidney Transplant Coordinator. Hearing loss is a common impairment that accompanies kidney disease. As I learned more about my new role and my patients, I discovered that two of the children assigned to me were deaf. They both utilized ASL.

I was amazed at how quickly my signing came back!  ASL interpreters are difficult to come by in hospitals and sometimes are not available at all. Though not as fluent as I once was, I was able to communicate with these patients in the way that they felt most comfortable.

Seeing their faces light up when they realized their transplant coordinator could communicate in their language was something I was not prepared for. I have experienced many “God moments” in my career as a pediatric nurse, but this one was very unexpected. God turned a passion from my childhood into a blessing in my career!

God also started urging me to begin using my voice again for Him. I felt called to sing at our church’s Women’s Retreat. While listening to the selected songs before the small retreat worship team began to practice, I clearly heard the Lord say about one of them, “I want you to sign this song.”  When I told the team, they were very supportive and excited.

As we sang that song, I was using my whole body to fully worship Him. After that musical set, a woman from the audience came up to me and started signing. She had been using her talk-to-text feature on her phone to follow along because she was deaf. Thoroughly thanking me for my signing gift to her, she also revealed that it happened to be her favorite song!

I have continued to sign whenever feeling called to do so by the Lord, whether at a retreat or as a member of the Praise Team on Sunday mornings. Using my whole body in worship to God my Father is such an emotional connection that allows me to fully express my love to Him.

God more than answered my mother’s prayer from my growing up years. He gave me a passion to sing and sign as well as a career that I absolutely love -- all of which work for His glory and His mission!

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy,
to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God -- this is your true and proper worship. 
Romans 12:1