Most of you know that Keith had a cochlear implant put in earlier this year. I have not reported much about it because it is a work in progress—a slow one. We have learned many things and found out that most of our assumptions were not exactly correct.
I suppose I thought that once this was in place that it always worked, that you would hear from then on. No. Just like any other electronic equipment, it needs a power source, in this case a battery. That means you put it on in the morning and take it off in the evening to recharge. I still cannot call out in the night and expect him to hear me.
And then there is the "hearing." The implant itself does not hear. It simply provides an electronic signal to the auditory nerve and he must learn to translate that impulse into a normal sound or word. Every day he practices "hearing" with either a computer program or by taking out his regular hearing aid that still sits in the other ear, and the two of us talking. Gradually he is learning that this noise equals that word. He is going much more quickly than most, they tell us, but it still seems slow to both of us. He does the best when he has the hearing aid, the implant, and his usual lip reading in play, but if he is ever to reach the point that he is ready for a second implant, he must get much better using only the implant. Otherwise, he will be lost if he still cannot "hear" with the first one.
And then there is the sound itself. Even when he can translate a word, it sounds more robotic than human. Sometimes pitched too high and sometimes too low, and very often mechanical. As one doctor put it, it sounds like a cross between Mickey Mouse and R2D2. That too, can distort the word for him. All in all, it is not a miracle worker. It is plain hard work with moments of discouragement and moments of wonder. A friend who was born deaf ultimately stopped using hers. It wasn't worth the trouble to her. She is not the only one who has ever felt that way. So far Keith has found the motivation to plod on.
The fourth week we were sitting at a stoplight waiting when suddenly he reached over and turned off the turn signal. "How can you stand that?!" he said. He was hearing a turn signal! Last week he sat at the dining table and then suddenly looked up at me and said, "Is that clock ticking?" Yes, the kitchen clock ticks. "Why? It runs on a battery." But you and I would have long ago learned to ignore it. That is a skill he is having to learn.
Our spiritual hearing can work the same way. Sometimes we turn it off on purpose. If I don’t want to hear what you have to say, I won't listen. Sometimes what you say sticks out like sore thumb because it is different. Everyone else just tells me what I want to hear but you have the love—and guts—to tell me what I need to hear. Sometimes it sounds off a little because that is exactly what it is. I am supposed to be able to tell truth from falsehood, especially in regard to God's Word. If it doesn't sound right, don't just accept it or even just ignore it—look it up yourself. I have seen Keith looking at me and others strangely a time or two as he hears these strange sounds that are voices he must learn all over again to recognize.
And sometimes what you hear can be the thing that saves your soul. When you recognize it, you should instantly want more. You should work harder and harder to understand it because you know your eternal life depends upon it. You have the motivation while others do not—you believe and they don't.
Check your hearing this morning. Do you need an implant? Wherefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls Jas 1:21. The Word of God is worth hearing and obeying. Don't take it out and turn it off because it offends you or because it takes some work to understand. Your soul depends on how well you hear.
Therefore speak I to them in parables; because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And unto them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says, By hearing you shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; And seeing you shall see, and shall in no wise perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear Matt 13:13-16.
Dene Ward
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