Dear friends,
This subject is ripe for 12 year old boys. Earwax. Today I took David to the ENT doctor to get a big ole' chunk of nasty stuff out of his ears. If you've never experienced ear wax removal, GOOD. It's gross in the extreme. For some reason, my youngest son is genetically prone to this yucky, annoying build up, and every so often we have to put drops in his ears to soften the clumps up. Step 2 is the mini "vacuum cleaner" in the doctor's office, and that awful set of miniature forceps that would make even Chuck Norris tense up. OK, maybe not Chuck Norris. But definitely any other tough guy.
So I hold David's hand and he squeezes like a boa constrictor, and out come these colossal pieces of orangey-brown ear wax. (I can't understand how these can be so big and still fit through his ear canal)! Of course, David insisted on seeing the mess. Then the big revelation: "Mom, I can hear!" Now the odd thing about that is HE DIDN'T REALIZE HE COULDN'T HEAR BEFORE! The additional relief of not having stuff knocking around in his ear canal seemed secondary to the woofs and tweets his brain was now able to interpret. As my friend (and next week's guest blogger) Dan B., the hearing expert would say: "He wasn't employing selective hearing." Well, perhaps when I told him to clean his room...
Of course, as the person who must spiritualize just about everything, (to the annoyance of my kids) I found a metaphor in this experience. It made me wonder how much of my spiritual hearing, my ability to listen to God, is impacted as I go not-so-merrily along, unaware of some chunk in the "ears of my heart" that might be limiting my perception of the Great One's communication with me. What sin, what hindrance, what wrong idea or faulty doctrine keeps me from the rich blessing of truth going deep into the corners of my soul? I come to this conclusion: a main blockage for me is the tendency to forget the bigness of God. Mounting troubles, difficult circumstances, stubborn problems that I can't fix- these in themselves have no impact on my or anyone else's power to hear the One and Only. The deafness comes when we don't believe in the greatness and stunning compassion of a Good Father who wants to speak to us in our pain. Unbelief is a big ole' chunk that must be removed. Then we can hear and experience in a far greater way the words of encouragement and peace the Lord wants to impart to His own.
I got into such a grumble this week. My pain over persistent sorrows became acute. And instead of running to Great Physician for an "ear vacuum", I forgot His bigness and crawled into a hole of trying to figure my way out of this mess. This mess cannot be figured out of. As usual, though, His kindness poked through my deafness. His word, read aloud by Peter J. at church on Sunday came through in all its glory:
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." ~2 Corinthians 4:16-18
The word of God took the wax out of my heart's ears, and renewed my hope.
One thing: David has to have this procedure done on a fairly regular basis. In the realm of the Spirit, I think daily is the ticket. Because as Scarlett O'Hara would say, "Tomorrow is another day..." There are words from our Father of grace, peace and love to be heard. Whatever it is that's blocking your ears today, go to the Only Doctor who can clean it out.
On another note, Smitty got me a box of assorted Lindt truffles for Valentine's Day. Double Yum. The little princess got some truffles from Daddy too, and a beautiful card. He's alright, that guy. I gave him exactly what he wanted to celebrate the occasion...
Keep climbing, friends. And thank you, Dr. Silver, for being a gentle, kind guy while digging around in my baby's ears!
Your friend on the pilgrim road,
Loriann
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