Sunday, April 14, 2013

Rachel's Prayers
April 14, 2013

Last night I had decided that today I would explain the reason for the web address of this blog - rachelsprayer.blogspot.com

We have been blessed with seven wonderful, caring grandchildren, each with unique personalities and talents.  Our granddaughter Rachel is the middle child in her family and she has a very loving, tender way about her.  Each of the grandchildren makes us feel very special.  Their eyes light up when they see us and they come running to give us a hug.  But Rachel lingers after that initial hug and just keeps hugging.  Here is one of her famous hugs being given to her Uncle Jim who was visiting from Idaho.

It has always bothered Rachel that I couldn't hear very well, and with her soft, high-pitched voice, I often had to have her repeat things several times.  Very tenderly, she has asked me many times, "Grandma, why can't you hear?"  Those are the times that break my heart.  I struggle through life with my limited hearing, but for someone to ache to want me to hear them, just really tugs at my heart.  For several years, Rachel has prayed, asking God to, "Please let Grandma hear."  She demonstrates her childlike faith and consistently asks our Heavenly Father to restore Grandma's hearing. 

When I first suffered Sudden Hearing Loss on January 18 of this year, I was hoping and praying that treatments with steroids would return the hearing that had just been lost.  Even on the second visit to the Ear, Nose, Throat (ENT) specialist, the possibility of a Cochlear Implant was brought up by the doctor.  His statement was that if the steroids didn't work, we would need to consider a Cochlear Implant.  I began to realize that because my hearing was so bad before the recent loss, the implant had the potential of giving me better hearing than I had been living with for at least the last 10 years.

The Cochlear Implant will not restore natural hearing, but rather it will allow the patient to have a chance to hear sounds again through cutting-edge technology that has been constantly refined since it was first used in 1978.  The sounds will be different, but with time, training, and practice, the patient can learn to understand speech and regain safety and confidence, living in a noise-filled world.  After the Cochlear Implant, there is a good chance that I will be able to hear Rachel (and the 6 other grandchildren) better than I could before the hearing loss in January.  So this may be God's answer to Rachel's prayers over these last several years.

As I mentioned, I had decided last night, that the topic for today would be explaining "Rachel's Prayer" as my blog address.  Little did I know (but God knew) that this morning at the close of the sermon, Rachel would go forward during the invitation to tell the pastor that she had prayed to ask Jesus into her heart and that she wanted to be baptized.  (Insert Grandma-sized tears of joy.)

Before the service this morning, Rachel had arrived to sit with me before any of the rest of her family came into the auditorium for the worship service.  She showed me the paper she had done during Sunday School class this morning.  She had written out the ABCs of becoming a Christian: 
A - Admit that you are a sinner, B - Believe that Christ died for your sins, and C - Confess your sins and asked God to forgive your sins.  We chatted and I told her about using her name in my blog address.  After the service, and after she had talked to the pastor, I sat with her and we discussed her decision.  I reminded her that the prayer she prayed to invite Jesus into her heart, is the most important prayer she will ever pray in her life.  What a joyful morning I had today.

A couple of weeks after I had lost my hearing, I sent a private Facebook message to our pastor and his wife explaining what was going on and they quickly responded that they would be praying for me and would help in any way they could.  The sermons that the pastor was preaching at that time were on the book of Job.  I told him one day that I wished I could have heard what he said because it really seemed that it would help me.  Shortly after that he came up with a way to take care of that.  I must say that our church staff has done an outstanding job of meeting my needs to help me stay involved.

For the last five years at our church, I had been in charge of our annual Winter Texan Banquet, to honor the many retirees who come South and spend their winters worshiping and working with our church.  This year I just could not do it, and the staff decided to take up the project (and did an outstanding job!).  They gave me the opportunity to speak at the banquet and I explained why I had to step aside this year, but I explained to them that in the end, this whole journey down God's chosen path for me, may be His answer to Rachel's prayers, "Please let Grandma hear".

9 comments:

  1. Beautiful explanation of the title of your blog. I was wondering last night why "Rachel" and now I know. And great news of Rachel's decision to follow Jesus. May the Lord answer the prayers of this little one and "let Grandma hear".

    ReplyDelete
  2. Loved this story! Thankful for Rachel's decision!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks, Carrie. We are also thankful for her decision.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Trying to comment one more time!

    ReplyDelete
  5. PTL for Rachel's decision. It is out of the mouths of the babes we find our greatest faith.
    We are praying that the implant will work well for you and that the hearing will be the best ever. The way God works is always exciting. He knows the end of the story and we only the chapter we are currently in. When we get to the end and look back we can then see how fantastically God works.

    ReplyDelete
  6. http://shopping.yahoo.com/aeroneb-go-reviews--shop/
    this is another website for the machine
    Your blog is great. Don't ever think you can not write all your are going through or think. If someone really doesn't like it they won't like it for some reason in general. This is your site so share all you are willing to. And like you said you are making it real. In real life we don't live (generally) with no problems. There are always things that happen. So good job. Keep it up.:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guess you didn't get where i told you to try to get a Areoneb go nebulizer. It does not have noise. you can take it and really use it anywhere between the battery pack and the plug in ablitity. The noise a regular nebulizer makes can sometimes be very disturbing if you are just a little hard of hearing or even when your hearing is fine. I wouldn't want to add to the bad sounds you hear. But this one is great. Ask Mom as she saw me using it. Take care. prayers continue.

      Delete