Knee Deep in the Hooah!

I just came from my monthly MOPS meeting. Emma and I always have a great time gathering with the other women and children. We laugh, share, talk, cry and pray about the things that weigh heaviest on our hearts. Today one of the ladies who attends shared about the success she has had going through a cochlear implant. She had an implant many years ago, but the technology has improved so much that she was recommended to Vanderbilt University to have a newer and better one implanted. She is a wonderful mother and wife, and a dear sister to know.

She told us this morning of her journey through extremely limited hearing from the old implant, to total deafness while the new implant site was healing. When they first turned the implant on, our dear friend shared, the first thing she heard (and the first time with this clarity and volume) was her husband’s voice.

I was taken back for a moment. I have never before contemplated what it would be like to not hear my husband’s voice, and then my thoughts turned to the spectrum of emotion a voice can raise within us. I can not imagine not being able to lay in the dark with him, when the house is asleep, and not hear him talking to me. I can’t imagine not hearing his voice say “I love you” as I am walking away. Until this morning I had never contemplated what an enormous gift my husband’s voice is to me — even when he was away from us, I still took for granted that I would hear his voice again. I can even imagine his voice and what he would sound like talking about certain things. His voice was already deeply ingrained in my memory and senses. I never thought of not hearing his voice at all.

Of course the parallelism as a Christian goes beyond my marriage on earth, and transcended to thoughts of Christ and His Bride. When I think of my friend’s overwhelming joy at hearing her beloved husband’s voice, clearly, for the first time, I have to wonder what joy we will have when we can clearly hear His voice. I know we hear Him while we are here through scriptures, but I am contemplating His voice without the veil of a fallen world and nature. I am imagining His voice without the noise of worry, grief and the daily grind competing for my attention. I can only imagine it in as much as my friend’s experience has allowed me to vicariously experience that feeling. Anything beyond that is unimaginably joyful.

Tags: Things I love, faith, family life, worry //