By Debora Coty
I had a transformation this week. Unexpected. Humbling. Glorious.
For the last two months, I’ve been unable to hear out of my right ear; noises were completely muffled as if I were under water. Many sounds were lost to me altogether … birdsong, someone calling me from the next room, the telephone ringing.
I had difficulty understanding someone talking to me unless I could see their lips. In a restaurant or public place with background noise, I was unable to discern specific voices.
Nothing helped. We tried roto-rootering the ear canal, antibiotics, antihistamines, anti-everything we could think of. In the end, two different doctors admitted they had no idea why my ear decided to close up shop. It was as if an involuntary earlid (like an eyelid) had battened down the hatch and refused to be pried back open.
I felt like an old woman with an ear trumpet repeatedly droning to everyone trying to speak to me, “Eh? Eh? Eh?”
So I did what we do when all else fails: I prayed.
Okay, so I had been praying about it all along, but my own little hearing problem was relegated toward the bottom of my priority list after petitioning healing for my friends battling for their lives with cancer. And then, my faith approach was admittedly weak, as in, “Lord, help me find the right doctor who can fix this.”
But I finally reached the end of my rope and hit my knees in earnest on my own behalf, pouring out my need to the Great Physician.
I prayed specifically that Papa God would send a grace note (my term for everyday miracles) my way and open that sucker up in time for my 70s High School class reunion so I could hear my classmates’ voices over the background music.
After eight long weeks of unwanted silence, the day before the reunion, I woke up to birds singing outside my window? Whoa! I could hardly believe it – I could actually hear those little fellas tweeting! Sweetest sound on earth. (Why are we always so surprised to get a miracle when we pray for one?)
Sure enough, my hearing was fully restored.
Wow. BIG wow.
It was a grace note alright. Because that’s what Papa does: heaps grace on top of more grace. He loves to surprise His children with gifts wrapped in a ribbon of glorious grace.
What grace-gifts has your Papa God surprised you with lately?
