The Night My Life Got Quiet, Too Quiet

This past weekend, I had a bit of a health crisis.

I was getting ready to go to bed on a perfectly normal Saturday night when all of a sudden my world fell quiet, literally quiet- and not in a nice, peaceful way.

It felt as if someone had pressed my left ear against a thick wall. In all of a few minutes, I could feel my hearing fade, and in came this roaring, ringing sound through the chambers of my head.

All of this came out of no where.

“Something’s really wrong,” I told my husband that night. I didn’t panic, yet.

I saw an otologist a few days later, and I was diagnosed with what I feared, sudden sensorineural hearing loss in my left ear plus some vestibular issues (dizziness). My audiology test showed I had profound hearing loss in that ear. My heart sank.

How’d I go from perfect hearing to this?

The doctor seemed genuinely optimistic that it could gradually get better, but of course, he couldn’t guarantee anything.

The cause?  It’s unknown. The doctor thought maybe it was an autoimmune issue.

So all of a sudden, life has become harder. Just like that. My life sounds different, and I will need to adjust to it, temporarily or indefinitely – my kids’ voices, the sound of the kettle brewing, the washing machine beeping, the jingling tags on our little Chihuahua as she trots to my side. I took my daughter to her gymnastics class, and I was overwhelmed by the sheer chaos of noise – without two hearing ears, it’s much harder to separate background music from conversation. My world, once rich in stereo surround sound has become a bit more mono – I joke to my husband that everything sounds like it is coming out of one cheap speaker right now. A little funny, but definitely not fun!

I will admit, the first two days with this, I was down. It’s just a shocking and emotionally difficult experience. 

But somehow, I am learning to keep my thoughts on His goodness, sovereignty and strength. I am realizing that the only way through this is by holding tight and resting in His grace. I’ve been through scary health issues before, and while I don’t pretend to know it all, I know that the best thing I can do in times like this … is to wait patiently on the Lord.

Believe me, I’d very much love for my life to go back to normal, like tomorrow.

But I know the Lord will come through. I don’t know how He will choose to or when, but He always has.

So now I just wait on the Lord in my newly muffled world, praying that I will draw closer to Him. I am trying my best to be grateful that I can still hear normally through one ear, and I am doing my best to continue life as normally as I can.

I guess my heart in sharing this is to encourage those of you who may be waiting in a place of loss too … for reasons entirely different from mine, but waiting just the same.

And if so, let’s wait together. Even if you struggle to feel Jesus is even there, let’s wait. You don’t have to wait before Him with perfect faith … just come. Come messed up and doubtful and hurt. Just come.

It’s true, life is one beautiful, amazing trip and sometimes it’s easy to make it all about how much we can gather along the way – but what about the very real losses we face too? Somehow it seems, we have to fight to see God’s goodness in both.

Not an easy task – but with His grace, I know this quietness … this somewhat scary stillness of waiting … will turn into a song of clearest hope.

So, my friends, whatever you’re facing, let’s wait on Him together.