Seminary graduate overcomes brain injury to serve patients as hospital chaplain

>>This month, Liberty University celebrates over 32,000 graduates who are ready to impact the world as Champions for Christ. Follow Liberty News for full Commencement coverage and more stories of trial and triumph from the Class of 2026.

Liberty University Theological Seminary graduate Tim Leeland is a living testimony of how God uses personal struggles as a conduit for blessing others.

In 2004, Leeland suffered a traumatic brain injury after being stabbed in the head at a party at 19, putting him in a coma for six days. When he woke up, he experienced from right-side partial paralysis as well as cognitive difficulties with memory, reading, writing, processing conversations, and executive functioning. Over the following years, he faced extreme bouts with depression, anxiety, and alcoholism.

In 2014, Leeland got sober and began attending Alcoholics Anonymous. This experience led him to Christianity, and he fully surrendered his life to Christ in June 2015. As he grew in his faith, he began to lose the bitterness and pain that had controlled his life for so long.

“I learned that there is no joy or love like that which is found in Christ,” he said. “He transformed me from the inside out and continues to do so. It is not about healing me or making me feel better. Rather, it is all about Jesus. It is about teaching me the greatest joy of serving him in his Kingdom, dying to self, becoming like Jesus, loving and pleasing him, and participating in the Great Commission. He is my joy.  No one loves me like Jesus and He is enough. I’m always on mission to participate in the Great Commission by preaching the Gospel. It is an honor, whether it is by planting seeds or winning souls.”

After finding Christ, Leeland worked as a social work case manager in Arizona, helping others experiencing struggles like his own. Through this work, he began feeling a pull toward full-time ministry.

“I have a heart for human services and giving people second chances,” he said. “I thought it would be something where I could just give back, but God really opened it up to become a ministry for me. I got to participate with the Lord in salvation, talking about Jesus, really just being a part of their lives and seeing how God moved within them to bring them healing.”

With this passion for serving others came a desire for others to find the same healing he had himself found in Christ. This included the very man who had caused Leeland so much pain by stabbing him all those years ago.

“A big part of my experience and growth in Christ centered around forgiving the man who stabbed me in 2018, as commanded by Christ,” he said. “In Christ, I not only forgave him, but I prayed for him, loved and cared about him and his salvation deeply. It was not I, but Christ as seen in Galatians 2:20. Jesus allowed me to understand the joy of obedience and experienced His healing in forgiveness.”

With a desire to pursue his master’s degree, Leeland visited Liberty and said he was instantly blown away by the school’s atmosphere.

“It was an amazing experience for me to go onto a college campus in the United States that was centered in Christ,” he said. “It was so easy for me to say I wanted to be a part of this community and wanted to grow with these individuals.”

In faithful obedience to God’s calling, Leeland uprooted his family and moved to Lynchburg to enroll at Liberty. After meeting with leadership in the Center for Chaplaincy, he began his Master of Divinity in Chaplain Ministries in Spring 2022.

“(Chaplaincy) was an easy fit,” he said. “It just combines my natural-born gifts with my spiritual gifts of exhortation, encouragement, mercy, and help.”

While studying at LU, Leeland completed a chaplaincy residency with Centra Health, a regional healthcare system based in Lynchburg. He finished his degree in December and was hired as a chaplain with Centra Health in February.

“Being in a hospital is very uncomfortable (for patients); you’re out of your comfort zone, you’re vulnerable, you’re getting prodded and poked at all different times of the day and night,” he said. “So (chaplaincy) is just a great opportunity to meet a patient where they are and bring them encouragement and grace. If I can participate in any kind of spiritual or emotional healing, that’s also a big highlight for me.”

Through his chaplaincy work, Leeland now aims to share the love and joy he found while battling his own health concerns. Although his cognitive issues were healed a year after his stabbing, he continues to live with partial ride-side paralysis. He referenced 2 Corinthians 12:9, which highlights how God often works through a believer’s weaknesses, as a key verse in his personal testimony.

“The amazing thing about God is how He can take every bit of our struggles and our trials and refine us by his fire and turn it for the good of others,” he said. “Even on my difficult days, He can send me into the room of the patient that is blessed hearing about my story and my struggles. Sometimes He will bless me when I’m able to watch how my patients are relying on God through their own struggles.”

Working in healthcare, Leeland said he encounters individuals from a variety of faith and cultural backgrounds. He said his education at Liberty reinforced the need to show respect and love for all patients.

“As I walk the floors and see heads that are bandaged, individuals who are in comas, and families who are in tears, I can enter that room with an understanding of what they are going through and a heart to be by their side,” Leeland added. “That’s the essence of chaplaincy — being with the person. We’re not here to fix, but we are here to be with them. As Christ did in His incarnate ministries, so do I. He gave me the tool of my TBI to benefit others. It’s helped me stand in their shoes and have an extra amount of empathy and compassion.”

As Leeland prepares to walk across the stage at Liberty’s 53rd Commencement, he is reminded of God’s goodness throughout his life.

“I’ve walked a difficult path in my life, but Christ brought me here and He just showed me that He can strengthen me, encourage me, fortify me, and refine me for His purposes and will. To walk this stage as a person with TBI — 10 years ago I was not even close to the man I am now — but through Christ, it is possible. I kept that image of walking across that stage in my mind for a while now.”