Sweet Surrender
Bernadette is a Catholic writer and cochlear implant recipient whose stories explore loss, trust, and the quiet nudges toward surrender to God’s will.
Surrender does not mean quitting. It does not mean giving up. If anything, it means accepting current difficulties and circumstances but learning to find joy and meaning through hardships and trials. Surrendering to God’s will often allows us to become a version of ourselves that we would’ve never been able to achieve if not for tests of faith.
Removing Band Aids
Obstacles and crossroads of faith, loss, and surrender should be addressed with grace and humility as one listens for God’s still, small voice.
Bernadette is an advocate for deaf and hard of hearing individuals. She is interested in removing temporary solutions that rely on the person struggling to only fix themselves. She wants to see systems where people learn to ask, “What do you need?” Additionally, if the recipient doesn’t quite know their needs, because they are still navigating their own struggles, an offer to sit with them as they figure out what works for them is the next best response.
She’s also interested in supporting families through the struggle as one member adjusts to a major lifestyle change, because hearing loss affects everyone. We all lose out when we allow one person to go quiet, when we allow each other to disconnect. Hearing loss does not have to mean isolation; however, it does require creative solutions to complex problems.
Let’s find those solutions together.
