Broken (for Five Minute Friday)

It is Good Friday--the day my savior took on the sins of the world for ME (and you). He did this so that if we would believe in Him we would have eternal life and be in relationship with Him on this side of eternity. Before he was nailed to the cross (which He would have done even if it was just for me--staggering thought), He sat with his disciples and shared a meal. He told them as he broke the bread that it represented his body--broken for them.

My body is broken, too. Well, my ears are broken. Over the last 5 years, I've had a progressive hearing loss which has gotten progressively worse. In the last few weeks something has happened to make it get far worse. I am now considered "profoundly deaf."

I am a very social person. I love to talk, visit, chat, meet new people, share stories--but deafness separates you from people. Most people, unless they really love you a lot, do not want to repeat themselves umpteen times. Being broken is keeping me from people--and my heart is hurting over this. At the same time, I have an amazing sense of peace. My newly found deafness did not catch God unaware. It did not happen while he momentarily stepped off the throne to check on the people he really likes. He really likes me (see above; he would have died for me if I was the only one). If Jesus was broken for me, could it be he wants me to be broken for Him? What does it mean to be "broken for Him"?

Michael Stampley sings:

Brokenness, brokenness is what I long for
Brokenness is what I need (gotta be broken)
Brokenness, brokenness is what You want for me, for me

So take my heart, and mold it
Take my mind, transform it
Take my will, conform it, to Yours, to Yours, O Lord

Matthew 11:15 says: "Whoever has ears, let them hear." I have ears...but they are broken. Why? I do not know. I do know that God calls us to brokenness.  So, I start with the ears, and perhaps, with the grace of God, the rest of me will follow.

http://lisajobaker.com/2013/03/five-minute-friday-broken/

This is for the birds!

I woke up this morning and I could hear the birds!! I was so excited. It’s been a while since I’ve heard them. I have a progressive hearing loss, which lately has become progressively worse. I felt like I was functioning pretty well when my loss was in the “moderate to severe” category, but as I’ve progressed to “profound,” I realize just how much I really don’t hear. 

Two weeks ago something happened. I thought I was perhaps congested or some other such thing. I felt like my head was in a barrel. Everything sounded muffled. A trip to the ENT showed no such luck. Something happened alright; the rest of my hearing was pretty much gone. I am now profoundly deaf in one ear and severe to profound in the other. In addition, this new round of not hearing has brought a whole new slew of tinnitus sounds. A new online deaf friend calls what she hears “a swarm of locusts.” That is an exact perfect description for what I hear. Well, it’s one of the sounds I hear. There’s a little madman in my right ear playing a triangle….ding, ding, ding, ding. 

So, today, I woke to the birds. I thought perhaps I had been healed of my hearing loss during the night! Oh happy day! I got up, brushed my teeth--to soundless water running, sigh…no healing; apparently just a new tweety noise in my head. I went downstairs to wake up my husband, who had fallen asleep in the basement on the sofa with his favorite feather pillow. He was covered in feathers, as was pretty much everything in the room. Guess we were both thinking about birds.  Welcome to my deaf life.