When West Side native Jenny Christian woke up one morning without the ability to hear, she overcame it using the only tool she had at her disposal — her faith.
Christian said the medical scare, which she said began in November 2015, was inexplicable even to health experts, who included an ear, nose and throat specialist.
“It was a lot of fear, anxiety, trying to laugh to keep from crying and even in those moments pushing myself to work and just keep going off of it,” said Christian, who explained that she lost her hearing not long after being laid off from a job in the finance sector that she had worked for a decade.
A former beauty queen, Christian had also started taking acting courses. During radio interviews and other public engagements, she said, she could barely hear.
As her medical scare continued, Christian said, the negative energy became overwhelming — so much so that a friend requested that she visit a church.
Christian described the visit as calming and reassuring, allowing her to believe that “everything is going to be OK.”
“When you go into the house of the Lord and when you’re getting ready to worship and you have all of these other people worshiping and praising around you, you have your minister feeding your spirit, it almost relieves you of every worry because it’s teaching you that your life was already set before you were birthed into this world,” said Christian.
Christian grew up in Union Missionary Baptist Church, but currently attends Living Word Christian Center in suburban Forest Park.
Last January, with her faith rekindled, Christian said a miracle happened. Her hearing returned as suddenly and inexplicably as it had left.
Christian, in recognition of how her faith changed her life, decided to launch a web series to highlight stories similar to hers on her blog, Fill.Heal.Restore. She said her ultimate goal is to be a beacon of hope to people and to let them know that no matter what they’re going through they can turn to God.
“I just wanted to have a platform to be a beacon of hope for other people who may be going through something to let them know no matter how difficult or how hard it may be that we can always hope in God,” said Christian.
“Once you lose your hope and your faith, you get to a point where you almost want to die,” she said. “I don’t want that for anybody so I decided to create that blog and as an expansion of the blog I wanted other people to see other stories aside from mine.”
Christian has already filmed the first season of her web series but is open to speaking with individuals going through their own issues.
“I don’t necessarily have to be in the pulpit to minister the message of God; I can do that in the way that he’s given me,” said Christian. “Right now, my focus is to use what I know as to what he’s given me, what he’s placed on my heart as a ministry.”
