Speech Diary- God In Our Struggles

Last night I went to a seminar about new online treatments for stuttering, but as it turned out, the speaker didn't turn up! So the group of fifteen or so people there just had a bit of a general discussion instead. While I was a bit disappointed, some pretty thought provoking things came out of the night for me.

'The Cost of Stuttering' is the topic of another seminar coming up, and for preparation the group put out their ideas. A lot of negativity came out of it, as people told their stories and talked about statistics and trends etc in stutterers. It opened my eyes to how much I have to be thankful for.

Cost to Relationships-

I am getting the impression that most stutterers are single. They struggle to get in to, and sustain relationships. Meeting people is hard, and finding a person who will be understanding is hard too. In the group last night, the majority were men, aged 40- 60, most apparently single. It seemed pretty bleak, the way they were describing their situations.

It made me realise how much God has blessed me by leading me to E, the most patient and supportive person I have ever met. To be a 31 year old married father with a stutter is apparently not such a common thing. God works through and uses our struggles, but thankfully He also limits the struggle itself. I can't imagine having to go it alone, both without a wife, and without God.

Cost to Work-

Another statistic that came up is that most stutterers are under-employed. I guess this is common sense, but to be honest I had never given it a lot of thought. A lot of stutterers wind up in jobs that are below their abilities, for varying reasons- lack of confidence, lack of understanding from employers etc etc. Last night various people spoke about being put on 'probation' in their jobs, and after that time, being let go, because the stuttering was deemed a hindrance. I'm not making a value call on this, it all makes sense. Still it is a hard thing for the individual to go through. They know their capabilities, but there are these limits to what they can attain.

This made me once again very relieved and thankful, when I thought about my own career. From a very young age, I knew that I wanted to draw, and God gave me the ability to draw. There was never any doubt for me, since childhood, that that's what I would do. What a wonderful blessing that God gave me that; something that stood on its own merits, aside from my speech.

I look at where I am now at work, and can't really imagine that I would be in a very different position if I didn't have the stutter. So yet again, God has allowed me to go against that trend, and has blessed me with ability to counteract or make up for to some extant, a disability. He's given me strong passions for other forms of expression, so as to 'minimise the damage' of struggling to express myself verbally.

All in all, I feel very grateful to Him, and the sad stories last night came as a timely reminder of just how much God has worked in my life, in, around and through the stuttering.