The Reset Kitchen Journal • Healing Journeys • 7-minute read

Jaw surgery temporarily took away something I had rarely thought about—the ability to simply open my mouth and speak. What began as another challenge of recovery became an unexpected lesson in patience, compassion, and seeing people through a different set of eyes.

There are certain abilities we move through life assuming will simply be there.

We wake up.

We walk into a store.

Someone says hello.

And we answer.

We ask where something is.

We order coffee.

We make a phone call.

We tell someone what we need.

We speak.

I never considered what an extraordinary freedom that was until, for a season, I couldn’t do it.

When Talking Is No Longer an Option

After bilateral TMJ surgery, my mouth was secured with a splint and elastics as part of the healing process.

I could make sounds.

I could attempt words.

But communicating clearly was another matter entirely.

Words I had spoken thousands of times suddenly required enormous effort—and even then, the person standing in front of me often couldn’t understand what I was trying to say.

At home, we adapted.

There was texting.

Gesturing.

Typing something on my phone and turning the screen toward someone.

The people closest to me gradually learned to decipher some of my attempts at speech.

But leaving home was different.

Life still required groceries.

Dry cleaning still needed to be picked up.

Errands still existed.

And every ordinary interaction suddenly required a plan.

So I created a note on my phone:

“I’m sorry. I recently had jaw surgery and cannot talk.”

Then underneath it, I could type whatever I needed:

“Could you help me find this?”

“May I please have a gift receipt?”

“Can you tell me where this is located?”

“I’m here to pick up an order.”

I’d walk up to a stranger, smile, hold out my phone and wait while they read.

It worked.

But that doesn’t mean it was easy.

The Exhaustion of Trying to Be Understood

There is a particular kind of frustration that comes from knowing exactly what you want to say and being unable to say it.

Your mind is moving at its normal speed.

Your personality hasn’t changed.

Your thoughts haven’t changed.

You still want to joke.

Ask questions.

Explain yourself.

Participate in conversations.

But the bridge between what you’re thinking and what another person can understand has suddenly become complicated.

You type.

You gesture.

You point.

You repeat yourself.

You watch someone’s face trying to understand you.

And sometimes you simply give up on saying what you wanted to say because explaining it requires more energy than you have.

That can be exhausting.

It can be frustrating.

And on difficult days, something seemingly insignificant can unexpectedly bring you to tears.

Not because that one interaction was so terrible.

But because it landed on top of a hundred other moments of having to work harder to do something that once required no thought at all.

Healing taught me that frustration often isn’t about the moment in front of us.

Sometimes it’s the accumulation of all the moments that came before it.

Learning to Give Myself Grace

I needed patience from other people during that season.

But I discovered I needed just as much patience from myself.

That was harder.

I wanted to communicate at the speed I always had.

I wanted people to understand me immediately.

I wanted errands to take ten minutes instead of thirty.

I wanted to participate in conversations without constantly reaching for my phone.

And sometimes I simply wanted to speak without thinking about it.

But my body was healing.

It didn’t care about my preferred schedule.

Recovery required me to slow down and accept that, for a while, ordinary things were going to take longer.

There was grace in learning to say—even if only silently:

This is hard today.

Take your time.

You don’t have to do this perfectly.

Try again.

We often talk about extending grace to others.

Healing taught me how important it is to extend some of that grace inward, too.

Seeing People Differently

There was another part of this experience I wasn’t expecting.

For a short season, I experienced a communication barrier that changed the way I moved through the world.

I would never suggest that my temporary limitation allowed me to fully understand the experience of someone living with a permanent speech, hearing, neurological, developmental, mobility, or other disability.

It didn’t.

But it gave me a small window into something I hadn’t understood before.

How exhausting it can be when the world isn’t designed around the way you need to communicate.

How vulnerable it can feel to depend upon a stranger’s patience.

How much dignity there is in simply being given enough time to express what you need.

And how deeply another person’s response can affect an interaction.

That small glimpse changed something in me.

People Will Show You Their Hearts

One of the unexpected gifts of not being able to speak was seeing how people responded when I needed a little extra help.

Most were extraordinarily kind.

They would read my phone and their expression would soften.

“Oh my goodness. Of course.”

“Take your time.”

“How are you doing?”

Some went out of their way to help.

They walked me directly to what I was looking for rather than pointing across the store.

They waited patiently while I typed.

They asked questions that could be answered with a nod.

They found ways to make communication easier without making me feel uncomfortable about needing it.

Those moments mattered more than those people probably ever knew.

There were also people who seemed uncertain.

They didn’t know how to respond.

Sometimes discomfort looks like distance.

I began to understand that what appears to be indifference can occasionally be uncertainty or even fear of doing the wrong thing.

And yes, there were a very small number of people who appeared inconvenienced by the extra time communication required.

Those moments taught me something too.

Not about them.

About who I wanted to become.

A New Set of Eyes

I wouldn’t have chosen the limitations that came with recovery.

But I also wouldn’t give back everything they taught me.

One of the practices that has become especially meaningful to me during this season is beginning my mornings listening to the Grace Prayer YouTube channel. Those quiet few minutes of prayer and reflection each morning have truly been life-changing, often giving me something to carry with me throughout the day.

Recently, I listened to a message called “You May Not Need a New Life — You May Need New Eyes.” That simple thought stopped me.

So often we pray for God to change our circumstances. To remove the hard thing. To restore what has been lost. And sometimes He does.

But sometimes, while we are waiting for the circumstances to change, God changes the way we see them.

That is what I began to recognize in my own recovery.

Somewhere inside that difficult season, the Lord was giving me a different set of eyes.

Eyes that notice the person struggling to communicate.

Eyes that recognize when someone may need more time.

Eyes that understand that what looks like an inconvenience to me may represent tremendous courage for someone else.

Eyes that are slower to assume and quicker to offer patience.

I began thinking about how many people move through our communities every day navigating obstacles I never notice.

Perhaps they communicate differently.

Move differently.

Process information differently.

Eat differently.

Need more time.

Need assistance.

Or simply need someone willing to remain present rather than rushing away.

I still wouldn’t have chosen the limitations that came with recovery. But I can see now that God was using them to change something in me.

Maybe sometimes the prayer isn’t only, Lord, change what I’m walking through.

Maybe it’s also, Lord, give me new eyes to see what You want me to see while I’m here.

We may never fully understand another person’s experience.

But we can learn to notice.

And noticing is often where compassion begins.

Watch the Grace Prayer reflection:
You May Not Need a New Life — You May Need New Eyes | Morning Prayer

The Hidden Blessings of Healing

There are lessons available in difficult seasons that we could never learn from a comfortable distance.

That doesn’t mean we need to call everything that happens to us good.

Some things are genuinely hard.

Pain is hard.

Loss is hard.

Surgery is hard.

Recovery can be lonely, frustrating, inconvenient, and exhausting.

Faith doesn’t require us to pretend otherwise.

But I believe God can meet us inside those places and use even the things we would never have chosen.

He can soften something in us.

Open our eyes.

Slow our pace.

Deepen our compassion.

Introduce us to the kindness of strangers.

And teach us to recognize struggles we once walked past without seeing.

There were moments during recovery when I prayed simply for the strength to get through the day.

Looking back, I can see that God was doing something else at the same time.

He wasn’t only walking me through healing.

He was teaching me how to see.

And perhaps that is one of the hidden blessings of a healing journey.

We enter it hoping our bodies will be restored.

Sometimes God quietly works on our hearts along the way.

What We Can Offer One Another

If you encounter someone who is struggling to communicate, perhaps the greatest gift you can offer is surprisingly simple.

Time.

Look at them.

Wait.

Let them finish.

Don’t assume they don’t understand because they cannot respond in the way you expect.

Don’t rush to complete their thought unless they ask for help.

Find another way to communicate if necessary.

And above all, allow them to remain a person rather than turning their limitation into the defining feature of the interaction.

Kindness doesn’t require expertise.

Often it simply requires our willingness to stay present a little longer.

And if you’re the one struggling to communicate right now, give yourself that same kindness.

Prepare what you can.

Keep the note on your phone.

Text when talking is too difficult.

Ask for help.

Let ordinary tasks take longer.

Laugh when you can.

Cry when you need to.

And remember that needing patience during a difficult season does not make you a burden.

You’re healing.

Give yourself room to do it.

A Place to Reflect

Is there someone you encounter regularly whose life requires a little more patience from the people around them?

Perhaps they speak slowly.

Move differently.

Need something repeated.

Communicate through technology.

Or simply navigate the world differently than you do.

The next time your paths cross, resist the instinct to hurry.

Pause.

Look at the person rather than the limitation.

Give them the dignity of your time.

And if you are walking through your own season of limitation, ask God to show you what might be hidden inside it.

Not because the struggle isn’t real.

But because sometimes our hardest seasons give us something we could never have received any other way:

a new set of eyes.

Eyes that notice.

Eyes that understand.

Eyes that see people with greater tenderness.

I went into my healing journey asking God to restore what was hurting.
I never expected Him to use it to change the way I see the people around me.

That has been one of recovery’s most unexpected gifts.

And it is one I hope I never lose.

Here’s to your health, healing, and a place at the table,

Lisa
Founder, The Reset Kitchen