Change Comes Slowly, But It Comes.

Some days I start to wonder if I am making progress at all. I listen and realize that without lip-reading or subtitles, I just can’t follow speech. I think, “Shouldn’t I be getting more of this by now?”

Then I realize, that it wasn’t long ago that I was happy be able to understand a word as I was lip-reading. It wasn’t long ago that I was surprised to hear a word I was reading on the subtitles.

The change over time in the sound of a cochlear implant is slow and almost impossible to notice. But every once in a while, you perceive something that you had not noticed before.

• I realized that I am asking people to repeat themselves less.
• I noticed that I am forgetting that I am deaf when I am alone, because background noises are almost normal now.
• I realized that my comprehension struggles now are becoming more related to volume than to clarity.

These are things you can’t notice from one moment to the next, but over time. The change comes slowly, but it comes.

It’s Like Character

As we strive to build our character, get rid of bad habits, develop new good ones, become more patient, speak more graciously, we don’t really see the change from one day to the next, but over time.

I can look back over my life in the last year and see clearly if I have become more like the person God intends for me to be, or if I have fallen back in to being just a product of my environment.

Granted, building character is a bit more active than waiting for clarity of hearing, but is a process that can not be rushed in any real sense. Well, with one major exception. The Bible says “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away, all things have become new.”

The history of the world is full of stories of the rottenest scoundrels repenting and turning to Jesus. Instantly, they were changed.

Jesus cured the deaf he encountered instantly, too.

God is good.