Hearing the Sermon

Hearing the Sermon

Sunday, July 7, 2013

This morning I woke a little before my vibrating alarm clock had a chance to jiggle me.  I looked out the window and everything was wet - including our thoroughly soaked newspaper.  The good news is: IT RAINED.  The bad news is: I slept through it.  There is another chance of rain tonight, but as I mentioned yesterday, I am deaf at night.  I really want to hear the rain, but I guess I will have to wait for the next daytime rainfall to "hear" it.

Our Sunday School class this morning was celebrating with us over my success so far in being able to hear with my Cochlear Implant.  I was able to hear the various prayer requests given by class members for the first time in years.  Many on today's prayer list were praises for answered prayers.  Of course there was mine over the successful results of the activation of the implant.  We were also praising God that our youngest son is feeling so much better following his bout with mononucleosis recently.  A friend who has battled an eye infection is much better, and there were  other praises, like thanking God for the rain.  It was good to see so many prayers answered as we had prayed.  God does not always say yes to our requests and when He says no, often it is for a reason that we don't see.  Sometimes it is for a reason we see later.  My husband teaches the class and he had trouble staying on the lesson this morning as he remains so excited about my good hearing results.

As I headed into the auditorium for the worship service, I was met by my bubbly granddaughter, Rachel, for whom this blog is named.  I had not seen her since the activation and she ran to me with one of her big hugs.  I just looked at her and said, "God answered your prayers for me to be able to hear."  And she just smiled broadly and hugged me harder.   I will admit that she and her older sister are still a challenge to understand with their high pitched, sweet soft voices, but I know it will get better.  The three grandsons I had not seen since the activation were all fairly easy to understand.  One of them told me a lot about a video he is making of one of the younger brothers as a super spy and I understood him.  The video sounds interesting.  I hope I can HEAR it when the video is complete!

Several people sought me out before the service to rejoice with me over the news of my greatly improved hearing.  These are friends who had been praying for my hearing for an extended period of time.  I had seen the pastor earlier and told him that if I left during the service it would be to go out into the vestibule to sit under one of the speakers to listen.  It is often easier for me to hear there than in the auditorium. 

The service started and one of the songs was The Battle Hymn of the Republic.  Being a very familiar song, I found it easy to follow.  I was tempted to sing along, but I think I will try at home first.  I am not sure if I would be anywhere near the key that they are singing in at the time.  A newer song left me clueless as to the words and melody.  There was a report from both Children's Camp and Teen Camp.  I could not understand the youth minister.  There was a time of testimonies and several people shared; I understood little that was said.  I shared briefly at the end, thanking the people for praying, telling them of the amazing results, but warning them that I still struggle to understand many things and to sort out what is important from all the background noises.

When the pastor spoke, I could understand him if I stayed totally focused on what he was saying, but it required so much concentration on the individual words, that it was hard to follow the message.  It was a little like translating from a foreign language.  I don't mean that he sounded strange (he sounded very natural to me), rather I had to listen to each individual word, instead of phrases, and by the time I had the 15 or 20 words in a sentence, it was hard to put them together into a single thought and keep up with the next sentence.  I believe that will improve soon since I could understand the words, it just took so much effort.

After the service and some visiting, we headed home, had lunch, and then I again needed a nap.  These naps seem to be habit forming.  This evening after cooking supper and working in the kitchen, I visited with our son and his wife in New Mexico, using the speaker phone.  Again, it was easier to understand the lower male voice of my son, but I managed talking to both of them. 

The main challenge today had to do with background noises.  This was especially true in the church auditorium.  In time, all of this should get better.  So, stay tuned to my blog for updates.  Oh, I thought that I would mention that so far there have been over 4,500 views of this blog.  (Each time a person views the blog it is counted, so it is 4,500 views, not 4,500 viewers.)  The views have come from 35 countries besides the United States of America.  (In case you haven't noticed, I love statistics!)