Pardon?! (or … Life with a hearing impairment)

• January
• 31

6:00 am Christian living, Marriage

“Sorry love, what did you say?” I asked my husband for about the tenth time that day.  No wonder he complained that I never seemed to hear him! 

To be honest, it was starting to lead to some tension between us, as he felt I suffered from “selective hearing loss” – aimed solely at him.  His feelings were hurt, because I no longer seemed interested in what he had to say!

But the truth was, unless I was looking directly at him, I really couldn’t distinguish what he was saying. If he had his back to me, or was in another room, or there was background noise such as the television, try as I might I just couldn’t catch what he was saying.

Aware of his hurt and anxious to please, I tried to compensate. Whenever he spoke I would concentrate with all my might, to no avail.  Sometimes I cheated and pretended that I heard – but more often than not, I was caught out when I gave a totally unrelated response!

Lawrence also quickly realised that my non-committal “mmm – hmmm” was an attempt to mask the fact that I had absolutely no idea what he was saying, but didn’t want to let on!

 So I made an appointment to have my hearing checked.  Keen to solve the mystery, Lawrence came along too, and it is just as well that he did or he would NEVER have believed the verdict! 

“Well, the good news is your hearing is pretty much perfect!” announced the specialist, before continuing: “The bad news is, there is one particular frequency where your hearing does drop out.  It’s around this certain number of hertz. You can hear perfectly above this frequency, and just as well below it, but there is one particular pitch that you cannot hear.”

 “What sort of noises have that hertz?” asked my husband (you can tell he used to be in the sound team at our church!) 

“Oh, things like a truck motor idling … and men’s voices!”

We were flabbergasted! Because I am a hay fever and sinus sufferer, over time the blockage of my sinus and nasal tubes has also interfered with the ear canal, resulting in the “dead spot” in my hearing.

Now that we are aware of what the problem is, we are learning to work around it.  Lawrence is much more patient with me now that he knows that I’m really not ignoring him deliberately!  

Sometimes our hearing of God’s voice gets a little blurred too. It could be that there are distractions like the constant noise of the TV or radio.  Maybe we aren’t paying proper attention – we need to look at His face to really catch what He is saying! 

Sin, like a big lump of wax in our ear canal, can block our hearing too.

Or it could be that we are not in the same “room” as He is – you know what they say, if you feel that God is far away guess who moved?!

“ … Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” 1 Samuel 3:9