The CROSSroads: Personal Lessons from Mark's Gospel by Rev. Mitch Schultz

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:34:19utc

Lesson Twenty Seven: HAVING WORDS TO YOUR THOUGHTS (Mark 7:31-37)

His tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly! (vs. 35)

The other day, as is our daily custom, my wife Elaine and I enjoyed a good walk together. We use this time, or I should say I use this time, to help her re-develop a link between her words and her thoughts. Helping Elaine express herself has given me a new appreciation for the power and delicacy of the brain. Because Elaine has had to re-learn a good deal of her speech, I have at moments forgotten that her sharpness and intelligence have remained intact. So while quizzing her on some biblical doctrines on this particular walk, I asked her if she remembered what the term incarnation meant. She stopped, glared at me and said sharply, "Do you think I am stupid? Of course I do." I was humbly reminded again that her struggle is not in knowing something but in being able to express that thing.

Following Elaine's surgery to remove a brain tumor in June of last year, she has suffered with a condition called fluency aphasia. Interestingly it was Sigmund Freud who came up with this term in his efforts to understand why stroke patients had the inability to express themselves. Aphasia is simply the inability to articulate words, fluency aphasia implies that the person can make sounds but most of them are incomprehensible. When Elaine first came home from the hospital she spoke a lot. but much of what she said did not make any sense. She had virtually lost all ability to associate words with concepts and thoughts. She now tells me that she thought she was speaking normally and wondered why people looked so confused when she spoke to them. It was only when she began intensive speech therapy upon our return to America that she began to hear how wrong she sounded. And only then did she begin to improve. Today after nine months she can interact quite well but struggles with some names and nouns.

It is difficult for those of us who live with someone with Aphasia to keep in mind that their inability to talk does not mean the ability to process thoughts is lacking. When struggling to say a word Elaine will often say "I can see it, it's right there" and by writing the first letter of the word on her palm, she cues herself effectively enough to come up with the word she has visualized in her mind. You see, inside her mind the process of forming words and developing thoughts remains unchanged. Just because a person cannot speak does not mean they do not go through the same reasoning and word development processes as we do. The struggle is in expressing those thoughts to us. Those of us on the outside cannot know those thoughts until they are spoken.

Can we not say the same of God's communication with us? Until God sent his Son to us, the one who John refers to as the Word made flesh (or the Logos John 1:14), the thoughts of God remain a mystery to us. Through the Word (Jesus) we not only hear God speak, we also get to know him personally. It is by the revelation of God that the thoughts of God are expressed. "He made known to us the mystery of his will." (Eph. 1:9)

It is a powerful but tender scene Mark portrays in this passage. Jesus, the Word made flesh stands before the helpless figure of a deaf and mute man. This man has lived the whole of his life with his thoughts, passions, ideas and frustrations locked in his mind. Until he could speak his inner world remained a mystery to those near him. But no longer! The Lord Jesus, master over speech, the one who with a single word created the universe and holds it together (Col. 1:16) takes those same hands that formed the stars and shaped the earth, to break open this man's private world. With a simple command, "be opened" this man's secret world is unlocked and like a burst dam the words flood out. "His tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly".

One month after Elaine's surgery, when it became apparent that she had lost her speech, I read this story from Mark's gospel. Next to this verse I penned the words, "my daily prayer for Elaine. July 1998." The Lord is answering my prayer. Her tongue is being loosened and she is beginning to speak plainly. Praise God. Meanwhile, I have grown to love and value the importance of single words. I stand at her side like a cheerleader praising her when she says a new word. (As I write this, she bent down to the floor, picked up some gloves and said, "I don't recognize these". I can now add the word recognize to her new words list.) I strain with her as she attempts to properly position her lips and tongue to form the "th" sound, or the letters "p" and "l". I quiz her daily on what day it is, what date and what month. Having once been a diligent reader of novels and study books, she now struggles through books my five-year-old is reading. She was once a gifted teacher of children and gave her life to help and disciple other women. Yet those traits are not lost. Even now I observe her with children. She plays with them and loves them. After therapy, she will walk to a friend whose father is in the hospital to pray with her. At a Church dinner, she grabs the drink pitcher and asks if anyone wants a refill. Actions do seem to speak louder than words.

I am reminded daily that the loss of speech does not change who a person is, or what a person thinks. And more than all this, like the crowds in the Decapolis I am "overwhelmed with amazement" at the one who is touching her lips and restoring her speech. Her tongue is being loosened and she is beginning to speak plainly. Praise God, and may he receive the glory.

Every revelation of truth felt with interior savor and spiritual joy is a secret whispering of God in the ear of a pure soul. Walter Hilton (1340–1396)