Hearing for the First Time and Counting My Blessings

I often complain about things in life that annoy me or that seemingly get in my way. Then, every so often, I see or hear something that reminds me that God has richly blessed me, and that makes me thankful for His many blessings.

Earlier this week I had an eye appointment with my ophthalmologist for a routine annual checkup. Last year a different doctor (an optometrist) examined my eyes and told me that she thought she saw the early stages of macular degeneration on my retinas. Since my maternal grandmother had macular degeneration for a number of years prior to her death, that concerned my. A followup referral led to a finding that the optometrist was probably just being overly cautious and that what she saw was probably not macular degeneration. That's why this week I was quite relieved when I visited the ophthalmologist again and the doctor confirmed that my eyes are quite healthy for my age. He said that the so-called signs of macular degeneration were no more than ordinary "druins" (a new word for me). As I drove home with dilated eyes into the blinding afternoon sun, I gave thanks to God for my sense of sight and my overall good health.

This morning when I saw the video below, I renewed my thanks to our Heavenly Father for allowing me to be able to hear his creation outside my window right now. I am even grateful to hear the rain that is falling steadily right now, and I'm grateful even more so that the rain is not snow!

[Note: I wish I could delete he commercial at the start, but it's part of the embed, unfortunately.]

My husband has a hearing impairment, so I know from talking to him how frustrating it is to miss out on certain sounds. He can hold a smoke detector in his hand and not hear the shrill, piercing scream when it is set off. We have all learned to live with the closed captioning on TV -- except when basketball games are on. We just turn it up a little louder at those times. That means tonight it will be really loud as we watch the NCAA Sweet Sixteen game between the UK Wildcats and the U of L Cardinals!

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