Reading books to heal brain damage?
Bonkers! It’s too simple! But could this beloved hobby of so many be one of the ways that God heals an injured brain? How could something as complex as a brain be healed by such a simple act?
Yet this phenomenon is exactly what happened to me after I sustained a brain injury in our family’s terrible car accident. This protocol was actually prescribed to me by a physician to help repair my brain. My story, combined with the following research, shows that while God does work in mysterious ways, perhaps mysterious does not always pertain to high concepts.
The Day I Lost Who I Was
The only extraordinary thing about January 31, 2021, was that after church, my family was traveling from Texas to Oklahoma for my great aunt’s funeral.
We never made it.
Upon leaving, I was my normal self thinking nothing of it. Normal is a relative word! My thought processes were online and clear, as clear as a multi-tasking mother can aim for, but that evening I would go to bed a completely altered person.
We had just eaten at the always delectable Braum’s – think Dairy Queen but with a teeny and quaint grocery store priding itself on it’s dairy products, and were plodding along on I-35 headed through Fort Worth.
We had slowed as there was a fatality (we later learned) up ahead, and as we slowed we were hit from behind by an F250 truck going over 70 mph.
We were launched across our side of the freeway to the guardrails which ascended us up high into the air to begin flipping over to the other side.
As we flipped, I screamed: “JESUS JESUS JESUS” until my words began to slur. My head was being concussed against the B-column, the spot where your seat belt comes out, with each landing.
“My family is going to die now,” was my only thought as I pled-screamed to the only One who could save us.
Finally, after a brief blackout, I came to.
Slowly, I realized I was not the same. To utilize my brain and think even a thought was like wading through rough ocean waters. Everything was slowed and took gobs of effort.
I had only one word thoughts. But one word encapsulated all that my heart cared to know:
“Family!”
I tried to speak. But my words, which have never failed me before, were suddenly not available. Every labored syllable I uttered was now complexly confounded.
Breathing was very difficult. And the pain was everywhere, but concentrated to my head, right side, and back.
Our car landed on its side, so someone had to take me out and put on the side of the road. I tried to calm my daughters. I was crying and my face had a small trickle of blood (broken nose).
“Mommaaa… Call…” I wanted to call my mom. They gave me the phone, but I could not assemble a sentence.
My processing was total mush. I heard my daughters asking through tears if I would live. I wanted to take their fear away by responding, but every time I spoke it only brought more terror.
How I Felt God’s Love
In the ambulance, I felt God’s tangible love.
Peace.
First, I felt the peace of the Holy Spirit pour out over my whole body. I had pain and fear, but His peace surpassed it just like Philippians says,
“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7).
A Song.
Even though my brain felt like it had been exchanged for a jello mold; a song entered my mind and I began to inwardly soul-sing while strapped to my gurney, “It is Well with My Soul.”
Knitting.
Now, this next part might lose some folks.
Disclaimer: I do not believe that all Christians are guaranteed physical healing on this side of Heaven. Sometimes we are healed, sometimes we aren’t- as I have discussed in a previous post. Either way, Christians are healed forever.
Now listen, I am a cross-stitcher, and I promise you during that ambulance ride I felt what I can only describe as “knitting” on the right side of my body.
Did God do some healing of my injuries during that trip? Possibly? I believe He did.
What The Tests Showed
The emergency department CT scans showed minimal things, as per the usual, I would need more help and testing to get solid answers.
A later MRI showed some areas of my brain that were impacted by the wreck which doctors said I would not recover from.
For many months, I felt like my brain showed the “Technical Difficulties” screen when I tried to plan, organize, construct ideas, etc. Dealing with emotions was hard. I lived by alarms to remember to eat, shower, and take medicine.
My days became very simple, and as someone who had always struggled with overdoing, I now see this as somewhat of a blessing.
I remember taking a cognitive test early on that had questions like, “What is the square on a person’s shirt that holds items called?”
Y’all, I could not answer it! For many weeks I laid awake trying to remember what this was, resisting the urge to search for it. Then I finally remembered: OH, POCKET!
This was a low, grieving point, but it was also slightly funny. Which could the tagline of my life story. “Sad but funny…”
“I Know Who I Am and I Know Whose I Am.”
As my husband drove me on down to my neuropsychologist appointment who would be able to measure my brain faculties with more accuracy; I prayed that I would not be tempted to measure myself by the IQ test’s results.
Tests do not determine who we are. Whether for school, post-car wrecks, or any kind of aptitude. God does.
No matter what it would tell me, I rallied myself to trust that: “I know who I am and I know whose I am.” This was my prayer pep-rally!
I clung to Psalm 139:14.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
Imagine Losing 30 IQ Points In One Day
Few adults, unless you are testing for MENSA or are just really cool, do not get to have a full-blown 5 hour IQ test. Rather, the whole enchilada, as we Texans say.
But due to our litigation requirements (hated that we had to do that), I had to learn just how much the accident had impaired the brain that I relied upon for homeschooling and all of life’s purposes.
Truthfully, I thought some parts of the test were a hoot! Again, cross-stitching came into play as I realized how all the stitching gave me an upper hand to visualize patterns. Or perhaps it was all the Tetris I grew up on?
But there were moments where I had to repeat stories I heard in the order told, or process other complex tasks that actually brought me to tears.
That poor test administrator. Let’s all just pray for him corporately. He has seen much.
A few weeks went by and I got the call.
“You have lost about 30 IQ points,” the doctor relayed, “but it appears as though you were very intelligent to begin with.”
I bet he tells all the girls this. Just tell them they had wiggle room or smarts to lose!
He also discussed how I would have to triple-read over any document or thing of importance as I would have a lot of lapses and word-switches. This has definitely been proven. Just the other day, three years later, I read “wheelbarrow” as “wheelchair,” and I only caught it when I reread the text.
Reading is the Cure
Upon hearing his words, I was dazed and ready for a snack. But again, I had that all-transcending peace. I was ready to accept this new me, then the doctor said,
“There is a way to help your brain regain some of what it has lost. Reading. You must read every day for at least 30 minutes for one whole year. It cannot be audiobooks, it must be an actual book.”
So that is just what I did. I got my Bible and sat in my special chair in my living room or read before I went to sleep taking note of the clock and adding 30, and God did the rest.
God was going to heal me through studying His Word!
Even though my brain was not braining, I had recently decided to start my apologetics training at Moody Bible Institute and later, Southern Evangelical Seminary, where I would encounter the most amount of reading I have ever done to date. Ever.
I read the Bible and all my reading assignments (about the Bible). Of course, I missed some days due to feeling crummy or forgetfulness/procrastination.
By God’s grace, I went on to earn a 4.0 GPA.
My past collegiate work can attest, that yes, that is actually miraculous.
All that reading worked!
My speech impediment as well as executive planning abilities, were all greatly improved over time.
I Wonder, Could Reading Help Your Brain Too?
If you are struggling with memory and cognition, I have to admit, daily reading for 30 minutes will be a challenge. I remember interruptions being so derailing.
I would also stop and just stare off into space.
It might not be easy at first, but it will have positive instead of negative side effects as opposed to medicine or other treatments.
I found that all the reading had actually trained and strengthened my brain like a muscle. Seriously, my brain went from mush to shredded.
But would you like to know how I discovered this?
When I took a break from about 2 years of academic reading, to read for pleasure (although I find apologetics very interesting), and picked up Great Expectations, I found myself reading like lightning. My eyes and brain were so in sync due to the daily reads. It was truly marvelous.
This is why you have to keep trying. Do not give up!
There is a lot of scientific research that correlates to my story.
The Research On Reading
A study out of Emory University published in the journal, Brain Connectivity, utilized fMRIs (functional magnetic resonating imaging) to gain daily images of subject’s brains who were reading a book for 19 days; with these images and daily quizzes the findings were significant.
- “The results showed heightened connectivity in the left temporal cortex, an area of the brain associated with receptivity for language, on the mornings following the reading assignments.”
- “Heightened connectivity was also seen in the central sulcus of the brain, the primary sensory motor region of the brain. Neurons of this region have been associated with making representations of sensation for the body, a phenomenon known as grounded cognition.”
This insightful article entitled, “Does Reading Improve Memory,” lists many of the neural benefits that reading can bring:
- “Reading is also known for initiating the process of neurogenesis by which new neurons are formed in the brain.”
Did you think I’d let you just gloss over the word: “neurogenesis?”
- “Reading helps in improving memory by increasing mental stimulation and allowing new neurons to be produced in the brain. The more one reads, the easier it becomes to recall certain things. This is because reading exercises the brain.”
- “A 14-year study released in 2020 found that people who read once or more every week were less likely to get cognitive decline across 6-year and 14-year intervals.”
“Thank Toyota, Not God”
We were contacted by the Epoch Times to tell our story, which we did.
There were many comments as you can imagine, and this one stuck out to me. That we should thank Toyota and the makers of our vehicle, not God.
I think about this often.
As an apologist, I would have given this push back (gently of course), “Who made the intellect and talent of the people that make the vehicles? Who engineers the engineer?”
Of course, this person, more than likely a naturalist, would offer their postulates to refute Creationism or Intelligent Design. And we would go back and forth. Hopefully I would be gracious in my dealings with a fellow image-bearer.
I can see a similar reaction to this post being one of, “It’s not God, it’s your brain.”
Sure, but Who made the brain to function as it should?
You can say it is blobs that evolved. But I think that using “enough time” as an excuse is incredibly lazy (which is probably how they would characterize a creationist Christian).
I would then offer that it is an intelligent, supreme being who knew I would go through a harrowing accident, and need help. God being THE Being, has created a complicated system of wiring (DNA IS a coding language) that in this case a simpleton like me can operate and repair, how?
By reading.
And not just any reading, but reading His Word.
How did the scientists know which parts of the brain were impacted by reading? The fMRIs would light up the parts that are impacted actually showing them the work at hand.
The Light of the World lighting up my brain to heal it. How divinely simple.
Perhaps we don’t need to overthink this, but to trust Our Maker.
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