Before I was diagnosed, but was also dealing with horrific symptoms, I got to be a part of Fields of Faith where Z led worship on our school football field. It was such an awesome event, and they played Gratitude, and it truly ministered to my heart. Gratitude is a song that SJ and I did the sign language to back in 2021. It also played twice while I had my MRI, and I knew it was the Holy Spirit.

When SJ approached me about wanting to learn another worship song in sign language, I really wanted to, but my health was unraveling at the time. The song that I was worshiping to over and over throughout this valley was Always on Time, so when I regained strength and focus, I asked SJ if she wanted to learn the song with me. She was excited to do so. So I got busy interpreting because, just like with Gratitude, there were no tutorials or videos online.

Interpreting is tricky because it’s not like sign language has a word-for-word translation. And just like the phrase “something is open to interpretation,” it means people will interpret things differently. I had a professional sign language interpreter tell me that if you lined up five interpreters and had them translate “God Bless America,” you would get five different translations.

There were a lot of tricky phrases in this song. For example, “If I knew then what I know now.” So we sign, “If past me know now what I know.” Also, “moment” and “minute” are the same sign, so we said “hour” instead. The lyrics are: “Never been a day, never been a minute, never been a moment that you weren’t in it.”

We sign:
never day
never hour
never moment

because I didn’t want to repeat the sign for “minute.” That was a creative choice on my part that did not change the meaning of the song.

Also, for “Never been a time that you didn’t see me through,” the phrase “see me through” isn’t really a concept in ASL, so I don’t know if it’s the best translation, but we signed “You always help me” because it essentially means you were always there, never let me down—you helped me. I am sure a professional could do something more accurate, but we had fun translating. Some words we use all the time, which is kind of fun to incorporate, because as I was teaching SJ, I would say, “You know this one,” or we’d laugh because words like “water” and “finish” she’s been doing her whole life (even before we knew she was deaf and we were just doing “baby signs”).

So it’s a full-circle moment, and you can imagine how emotional it is for me to go through all that we have—both the hearing loss and multiple sclerosis—and to sign this declaration. Even when Peter had his doubt on the sea, Jesus was there. When Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (I like using their Hebrew names) were thrown into the fiery furnace, Jesus was with them too.

When I’ve done speaking engagements at churches, I share our testimony, and at one church my message was titled “If I Knew Then What I Know Now.” It didn’t need to have a title, but I did, and I told everyone that was the title and referenced it several times as I shared. One of the testimonies was about when we lived in a crummy little rental property and were on food stamps, and SJ was at the deaf school. We could walk to the end of our street to see the annual holiday parade, and it was a bright moment in a dark time. Fast forward several years—SJ can speak, she’s doing awesome in mainstream school, and her deaf school was the grand marshal of the holiday parade, so SJ and I were invited to be in the parade! If I had known in those moments that someday it would all work out, that we’d be in our house and actually be in the parade, I would have rejoiced. So that was already something the Lord had spoken to me, and this song just solidifies it.

I am still walking out that promise with my new diagnosis. Anyway, all that to say—here is our latest ASL worship video, “Always on Time.”