God Sent a Translator

After the stroke, my husband was still in there. The thoughts were still there. The dignity was still there. The man was still there. What had been damaged was the bridge between what he meant and what came out of his mouth. So I became the bridge.

My voice helped carry his when he could not find the words himself. Not because I was replacing him. Because he was still there, and he still deserved to be heard. The full account of those years is in my memoir. But I want to preach about this role, because a great many of you are doing it right now and nobody has ever named it for you or told you it was holy.

Maybe it is a stroke. Maybe it is dementia, and you are the one who knows what she means when the word will not come. Maybe it is a child who cannot advocate for himself. Maybe it is a parent in a hospital bed who is too sick or too frightened to explain. Maybe it is somebody who speaks a different language, or does not have the vocabulary for the system they are trapped in.

And nobody trained you for it. You were handed it, and you learned it by listening harder than you have ever listened. It means staying in the gap between what was said and what was meant. It is exhausting in a way people cannot see, because you are doing the mental work of two people in every conversation.

In Exodus 4, God calls Moses, and Moses says, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, I am slow of speech. And God does not simply fix Moses' mouth. He says, is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? He can speak well. And thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth. God's answer to a man who could not speak was to send him a person. That is your assignment, and God invented it. You are somebody's Aaron.

Proverbs 31:8 makes it a command: Open thy mouth for the dumb, for the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth. Plead the cause. That is the language of somebody standing up in a room and speaking on behalf of a person who cannot speak for themselves.

Listen for the meaning, not the words. Proverbs 20:5 says counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out. Draw it out. That is patient work.

Never speak over them. Speak for them, never over them. Keep including them. Ask them. Look at them, not just the professional. Say, is that right? Did I say that correctly? Even when the answer comes slowly. Especially then.

Guard their dignity in every room. People do a strange thing around somebody who cannot communicate well. They start talking about them in the third person while they are sitting right there. You be the one in the room who will not do that. Genesis 1:27 says every person is made in the image of God, and that image was not damaged by the stroke.

Do not lose your own voice. When you spend years being somebody else's voice, you can quietly lose your own. Keep something that is yours. Tell one friend how you are actually doing, not how the patient is doing.

I did not become his translator because it was easy. I became his translator because I was his wife. That commitment did not end when the stroke came. I stayed. I listened. I learned a new way to understand him.

The person you are translating for is still there. They still have thoughts. They still have dignity. They still deserve to be heard. And when a world that has stopped listening turns away from them, you become the reason they are still in the conversation at all. That is not small. That is not a support role. That is intercession with skin on it. God sent Moses a brother. God sends the Spirit for us when we have no words. And God sent you to somebody. So keep listening, keep drawing it out, and keep opening your mouth. Somebody is still being heard in this world because you have not stopped translating.