Sharing in my obsession, I may have created a monster
All posts by Little M.S. Runner
Here comes the bus
I will start off this post by assuring everyone that #1 – my husband found my driver’s license, and it is still valid, so I was within my rights, and #2 – no one was harmed during the events of this story.
So. I walked the kids to the bus stop the last two days, and it has gone very smoothly. I was sharing this fact with my husband and I guess in the matter of sharing, I told him I would like to continue the daily procedure. But my crappy memory told me this morning that he had said, or the kids had said, that he would continue to drive them. So at 7:50 this morning I was freaking (I do that, it’s not pretty) because he was still in the shower and oh my gosh, they need to be at the stop in TWO minutes! No way, no how is he going to be out and dressed in time to drive them, and only Superman could get us there that fast on foot (or cape?).
What was a frantic Momma to do? Thinking fast, I grabbed my coat, keys, and purse, and the kids and I got in the car. And I drove the three blocks to the bus stop. We pulled up just as the bus rounded the corner from the other direction, making it JUST. IN. TIME.
I didn’t run over anyone, I didn’t hit any cars, I didn’t even run into any curbs. No harm, no foul. Daytona is not in my future, but maybe bumper cars??
On healing and cardboard boxes
I have been reading a wonderful book written by Joni Eareckson-Tada called “A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God’s Sovereignty”. If you haven’t heard of Joni, I’ll give a brief background. She is an accomplished author and advocate for the disabled. She sings and paints and hosts a radio show. What is so remarkable about this is that she was in a diving accident in 1967, at the age of 17, and has been a quadriplegic ever since. Her entire adult existence spent in a wheelchair, completely dependent on others. And yet she lives and breathes and inspires others to do the same (you know, to live).
Joni talks about the issue of divine healing. I know God can heal, and I have prayed countless times for it. Yet physical healing hasn’t happened for me. And some Christians will try to say if you’re not healed it’s because of a secret sin, or lack of faith. I’m here to declare that’s horse dookie. God will heal me, in His time.
Besides, if He isn’t healing me now, I trust that it is for a purpose. What that is exactly, I can only speculate. In fact, I believe God shared some of it with me today, through Joni’s book. She was describing the great analogy of the treasures in jars of clay, or in modern terms, gifts in a cardboard box. The box is just what holds the gift. It does not need to be fancy or even well-made. In fact, the more beat up the box looks, the more the gift inside will stand out. Do you see? Light shining through the dark, a gift glowing out of a cardboard box. The plainer the packaging, the brighter the light shines.
So I can understand why God has allowed my ears and eyes to fail. My disability brought me home, and gave me the gift of time. Time to give to my family and friends and ultimately, to God. That gift of time is the shining light in the darkness of hearing and vision loss. If the latter were the means to that end, I am thankful for all of it.
Removing Distractions
I’ve been feeling numb lately. Uninspired, lacking passion, boring even. And as I sit and contemplate why that is, I come up with a train of thought. The first car on the train being that I have not been praying on a consistent basis, and that leads to shallow prayers lacking meaning and purpose. Inconsistent and shallow prayers lead to inconsistent reading of Scripture, so I’m not talking to God, and He’s not talking to me (or I’m not listening).
Now, my main desire for starting this blog was to encourage and inspire people. I can’t do that if I’m only writing about the mundane details of life (though I know you love hearing about my housekeeping habits).
But, I digress. Back to the train. There is no meaningful conversation happening between me and God, and I am uninspired. Why is this? Because I am distracted. What is distracting me? Stupid Facebook games. There it is. I confess. And if I were truly, honestly confessing to you, I would share that today I spent a solid three hours playing Candy Crush and Farmville 2. Without getting up. And it didn’t end there. I did manage to get some things done, but always came back to the games. Because, “just one more” is a lie, folks. It never happens. This is an addiction, and the only way to beat it is to turn away. I have decided to stop playing altogether as of just before I started writing this post, but I’m honestly still arguing with myself about whether I “need” to un-install the damn things. And I think that’s the proof right there. They need to go.
What will I do to fill my down time? I don’t know, read, crochet, de-clutter the junk hiding in my closets and drawers? Or I could walk, practice hearing on the phone, write a note to a friend. That’s quite a list right there, and all of those things are things I would be happy to do. Correction: WILL be happy to do. Because starting tomorrow, the games are gone. Yup, I need to un-install them. Going to do that right now…
… okay, I did it! Wait, gotta remove Candy Crush from the phone and Kindle…
… okay, now I’m done. Games are gone.
I hope you know I’m doing this for you. I just hope it’s worth it. I’m gonna go cry myself to sleep now.
New challenges
So this week I have a new challenge ahead of me. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it kind of is.
My husband is going out of town for work. For three whole days. And the kids need to go to school, which starts at a precise time every single time. They ride the bus, which is on a schedule. Since I can no longer hear an alarm clock, my husband has served as my alarm clock the past year. And I don’t have one of those alarms that shake the bed. So I must rely on my oldest child.
Now, fortunately he is a very early riser, usually up and ready well before we are. So it will probably be fine. But we have set an alarm clock in his room just in case, and he has been instructed to wake me up as soon as he wakes up, whether it is when the alarm clock goes off or before. If he wakes me up at 5 am I’ll be regretting telling him that, but at least we won’t miss the bus.
I’ve been making sure they are ready for school for the past two weeks, so that part shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve gotten into a good routine and they are surprisingly self-sufficient. Luke, at 7, pretty much takes care of everything on his own. He’s a morning person and he loves school, so no prodding necessary. Natalie, my four year old, on the other hand, needs a little coaxing in the wee hours of the morning. But once she gets going, she does pretty well all on her own.
So. I’m nervous, a smidge, but really kind of excited to be given this enormous responsibility, and even more stoked that I am physically able to do it.
Hospitableness
One thing I am learning (albeit slowly and perhaps reluctantly) is that when God wants to get a message to me, He will use repetition. So when I come across the same message two days in a row, I start to take it to heart.
Yesterday at church our pastor talked a lot about hospitality and making others feel welcome. He gave a great example, reading the Bible story of Levi, the tax collector. Levi was so excited to meet Jesus that he immediately left his post and followed him. Then, he threw a party to gather all of his fellow tax collectors so they could meet Jesus too.
I was touched by this story, because lately I’ve been feeling a stirring in my heart and wishing I was more like this. More open and inviting, more courageous when it comes to sharing with others how amazing it is to know and interact with my Lord (not to be selfish, He can be yours too, of course).
And then we went home and got tangled up in the crazy busyness of life. Again. But God, being so gracious, brought me back to this lesson first thing this morning. As I sat down to drink my coffee and read my daily Scriptures, I caught the subject of my daily Upper Room Devotional email: “Welcome a Stranger”.
Sometimes these sorts of things are pure coincidence, or maybe just a case of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, but I like to think of them as reminders from God.
I am certainly not the most hospitable person you know. It is not my gifting. However, in the past 12 months I have found myself thrust into a new life. I never thought I could enjoy staying at home, but I am embracing it. So far this new role has included housecleaning, cooking, keeping track of kids and their schoolwork, and scheduling. I believe all of it is important, and am determined to give it my 100% effort. And I suppose if God is trying to tell me we can add some hospitality to the mix, I’m all ears (pun intended).
Perspective
I just watched a video showing the easiest way to cook corn on the cob (in the microwave, shucks on) and then read the comments on the video. Holy hell, these people were having some seriously heated arguments about corn and microwaves. One guy posted the f-bomb twice in one sentence, and another was apparently booted for cursing at another commenter. After the super lazy day I’ve had today, I was beginning to think I needed to get a life, but these people gave me some perspective.
It’s all good. Peace, love, and corn on the cob…
Productive days and support groups
Occasionally I have days where I feel like I totally kicked ass. Yesterday was one of those. At 10:51 *AM* I was Skyping my mom to brag about all the stuff I had already accomplished: read my daily Scripture, wrote the meal plan and grocery list for the week, cleaned toilets, bathroom sinks and mirrors, walked for ten minutes on the treadmill, updated my Cozi calendar with the kids’ school calendar, and I showered.
So when my husband dropped my daughter off after noon (half days all week, to ease the kindergartners into school, I suppose), I was ready. Of course, we only had an hour or so to relax because the rest of the day was a blur. I had a follow up appointment with my neuro-ophthalmologist in the afternoon, then we picked up our son from Grandpa’s house, then came home to quickly eat dinner, then Mike and the kids dropped me off at my HLAA (Hearing Loss Association of America) meeting while they went grocery shopping.
Neuro-op visit went well. They tested my eyes again, and found that my right eye is a little worse, but my left eye is a little better. I guess that means I’m even. They used the word “stable” which is much better than “going blind”, so I’ll take it. I don’t know why going blind scares me so much. I know people who are blind, some from birth, and they are otherwise healthy and happy. It certainly wouldn’t be the end of the world. It would only be the end of my world, if I let it be. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. IF we get to it. At this point I guess it doesn’t look like I’m headed there anytime soon. Thank you, Jesus 🙂
The HLAA meeting was wonderful. It’s the start of a new fiscal year for them (the local chapter, at least), so they kicked it off with an “open mic” night. I was excited to go, because I went to the last meeting in June, and to a dinner with the group in July, and already I feel like we are family. Last night was our opportunity to share our hearing loss stories with each other. It was refreshing to hear about other’s journeys, and was nice to be able to share mine as well. It’s amazing how different we all are, in general and in how we came to be deaf or hard of hearing, and yet we have a common understanding and can easily relate to one another. The group ranges in age and background. Some are lipreaders, some know ASL, some have hearing aids, and some have cochlear implants (some even have both!). Some have been deaf since birth, yet some, like me, have only been deaf a short time. Yet when I say being deaf sometimes makes me feel isolated, they all nod their heads in agreement. Because they have been there too.
All in all, it was a good day. Today I was reminded of where I have been, what I have come through, and the amazing gifts I have been given. Hallelujah.
Phone training
I am super excited! Kids started school today, and my head is swirling with ideas and plans for how to best use all this time to myself. Cleaning and meal planning is a given, but I have other stuff I want to get done. First and foremost, I want to practice listening with my cochlear implant. Which will be much easier now that I don’t have other sounds around to distract.
I really want to get to a point with the phone where I am confident (i.e. not afraid) to answer the phone when it rings. The first step was reviewing the instructions for my ComPilot remote, which pairs with my implant via Bluetooth. Easy peasy, right? Well, I didn’t realize that I can actually answer the phone with the remote. Should be super easy, as long as I have the remote with me, and turned on. So I have that new knowledge in my back pocket (along with my phone… hehe) and will practice listening in preparation. I did some reading on the Advanced Bionic (AB) forum at hearingjourney.com, and found that there are programs out there, provided by the cochlear implant manufacturers, to assist us ci recipients with learning to use the phone. So Cochlear has an actual phone line dedicated for this purpose. You call the number, choose the option, and listen. They even have a pdf for each day’s recording, so you can read along. See?
http://hope.cochlearamericas.com/telephone-training-aug31-sept6
So if I can do this every day, over time my brain will learn to recognize speech. And from here, things can only get better! (Ain’t that right, Howard?)
Home again
We went camping. With our church family and with our children. Our kids had a blast. One of the memorable parts for me was staying in the caboose. All the cabins were taken when we signed up, so that was our only option, and it turned out to be the best one! What do you mean by caboose, you ask? Well, it’s just that. A caboose. Equipped with bunk beds and a futon.
It was kind of a hike to the restrooms (Cuz we ladies do NOT use the porta-potty. No way, no how.) but we managed. I brought my cane, and I’m glad I did because it was very useful keeping me upright over all the hilly terrain (Well, mostly. I only fell three times).
Most kids love to camp, and ours are no exception. So we do it for them. We are not crazy about camping, and the two of us do not camp well together. I am generally a morning person, but something about waking up on a crumb-coated futon with welts on your face from your wiggly, sound-sleeping, seven year old sets me on the wrong foot. Not to mention the moment I recall that I did not bring a coffee maker and have to roam the campground with my empty traveler mug, peddling for hot coffee. Oh, and did I mention the 15 mile hike to the bathroom?
I think we did some fun things while we were there. Well, the kids anyway. They swam, rode bikes and scooters, slid down the biggest slip ‘n slide you’ve ever seen, and even went zip-lining 30+ feet off the ground. When Natalie saw that her brother was getting ready to go, she wanted to go too. No fear, this child. She is our daredevil. Four years old, and such a girly-girl, but she has no fear. She trekked right up to the top, feigned hesitation and fear for the zip-line operator, and then when it was her turn, off she went. She had a blast! And her only complaint was that it went too slow. Crazy girl.
Let’s see… We also had a big potluck with the church folk. Now, I grew up Methodist, so I’ve been to my share of potlucks. This potluck was by far the most memorable. Because as soon as everyone got the food set up, it started to rain. Hard. So I scrambled to get my food (yummy salad, by the way) and squeeze in with the crowd under a camper awning to eat it. Craziest potluck ever.
All in all, it was a memorable trip, and we are glad we went. We are also equally glad to be home. I’m sure I’m missing a lot of great details about the trip but my head still needs to unwind. Tomorrow is the first day of school! Again (it happens, like, every year)!!
Summer is ending, y’all. What was your favorite part?
Little M.S. Runner 