Thursday, July 27, 2017

Put the toy in the box.......

Where do I begin with the youngest female in our house?  She's all things cute and whiny.  She would much rather cry than look at you, cry than talk, cry than figure out why she is actually crying, and so forth.

But when she came to us at 10 mths old, she never cried.  In fact she never made a sound.  She ate and slept and was of course classified as a "good" baby.  But as she got older I was very suspicious that she didn't hear well.  I couldn't really put my finger on why but I just knew it deep down.  We went to doctors and she always had fluid on her ears so after 2 sets of tubes they decided to test her hearing.  However, she was so young they couldn't get an accurate read but wanted to continue to follow up.  In March, she finally made it through the entire gamut of testing in the audiology booth at Childrens.  She wore the ear buds, showed responses to sounds, and sat still for 45 minutes of testing.  Which is no small feat at 4.  And it showed what I have always suspected.  That she has hearing loss at a certain decibel.  Thankfully at the speech level she hears what we say, but when she gets to high frequencys she can't hear in either ear.  This affects the "th" and "s" sound and random things like an airplane jet, birds, etc.  She is in speech and will have to learn certain words by tongue placement and watching people speak.  She will need preferential seating at school and so forth, but all in all it's not a big deal.  The hope is it will remain stable and not progress.

However, when we were in the booth last week (we are now there often for follow up screens), I was amazed at how loud the sound was she couldn't hear.  It is the high frequency so imagine a loud beeping noise in the room.  I kept sitting there and finally even reminded her to place the toy in the box when she heard the sound (I am sure the audiologist loves me).  I really wanted to say, "come on now Grace, surely you hear that."  But she didn't.  In fact, it's amazing because the lowest pitch sound that I would have to strain to hear, she picked up immediately.  It was the loud screeching noise that was obvious she couldn't hear.  I often wonder if she thinks my voice never sounds shrill.  I bet she wonders why my face sometimes is red but I am making no noise.  Kidding.  Kinda.

Anyway, when I got home and was explaining all of this to J.O., I couldn't help but imagine if this is how God must feel with us All. The. Time.  He must wonder why in the world we can't hear what He is saying.  Why do we sit there and look around confused when we hear Him.  Or refuse to move when we hear Him speak.  How often must He be thinking...."come on now Tamra, surely you hear that."

This summer has been crazy.  I will be honest, I was in a funk at the beginning of it.  I don't like things that are unstructured, I don't have kids that handle things that are unstructured.  I had an attitude and kept wondering what was so wrong.  It took me far longer than I want to admit that it was because the noise was so loud in my ear and I kept ignoring it.  Choosing not to hear it.  The voice that told me what was wrong.  That I was spending far too much time on myself and busyness and far too little time with Him.  I can't lie.  I hate getting up early.  I just do.  So for now, I carve out time while I am getting ready by listening to worship music and a John Piper Podcast.

For now, this has lessened the ringing in my ears that says "Why can't you hear me?  Why are you not listening?  I am here.  I am faithful.  I haven't moved."  Sometimes we just have to realize the toy has been sitting on the table for far too long.  It's time to pick it up and place it in the box.