Still Emily

Some years ago, at a Church Anniversary in Kirby Muxloe, a family visited our church for the first time. They knew the guest preacher. They sat at the front and I was aware that the mother appeared to be 'signing' for her daughter [an attractive woman in her twenties]. After the service, I met them - they were a delightful family, and Mum explained that Emily had lost her hearing following illness. My friend Carole told me she had taught Emily Owen and her sisters some years before.
In her teens, Emily developed NF2 - where tumours grow all over the body. She knew that if she had the operation to remove a tumour in her skull, then she would wake from the anaesthetic into a silent world.Recently, Emily published a memoir - and Carole generously sent me a copy. It is deeply moving, a story of faith, and bravery and love. The triumph of a young woman whose courage brought her through the most awful times of pain and distress, sustained by her trust in God, and the support of her wonderful family. Despite all that she has lost - her hearing, her gift of playing the flute, her good eyesight, her control of facial muscles, her  ability to walk properly - and her childhood hopes and dreams for the future - yet she has come out of it a beautiful, happy woman, and she is Still Emily.

She talks about 'seeing rainbows in the silence' - even though she cannot hear, she can see God's hand on her life, and feel his love and blessings. 
She says "No one wants to go through what I went through nor live with the condition that I have, but my ordeal made me look at life in many different ways and indeed experience extraordinary things."

Check out Emily's website, and read her book - it will challenge and inspire you! Thanks Carole for sending me a copy  
And please do watch this little clip - it is less than 2 minutes long