Open Our Ears
This week,
an ignored
and let-go-for-far-too-long
sinus situation
has found me
plotting my way
through life
with intense
sinus head pain,
ear pressure and earaches,
combined with
extremely muffled hearing.
With swollen,
infected ear canals,
sounds of
the outside
world are
almost mute,
while the
sounds
inside my head –
such as my own
coughing,
chewing,
talking,
and even breathing
are almost
deafening.
What should
and needs
to be heard,
isn’t.
What shouldn’t
and doesn’t need
to be heard,
is.
And all
this imbalance
in my head
and in my hearing
has me feeling
(literally at times)
very unbalanced.
And I can’t
help but thinking –
that how
I have lived
this past week,
isn’t much
different
from how we
as humans
live
most of our lives.
With an ear
tuned only to
our own needs,
our own wants,
our own cries, –
it becomes
very hard
to hear,
much less
distinquish
and hear clearly –
the needs,
the wants,
the cries
of others.
All we
can hear
is us –
inside our own head,
inside our own life,
inside our own bubble.
And yet,
how very
distorted
this kind
of hearing is.
The ears
of our body
(and the ears
of our heart)
are designed
to hear
in the exact
opposite way.
To hear
loudly
that which
is outside
of us –
not in.
This current
sinus situation
that has me
fervently praying
for relief –
for ears to pop
and for normal hearing
to return –
has made
me keenly aware
of an even
greater need:
for the ears
of my heart
(along with
the eyes
of my heart)
to be opened
to the needs,
to the voices,
to the cries
of those
around me.
Lord,
Open our ears
to the cry
of the hurting,
of the lonely,
of the mistreated,
of the misunderstood,
of the neighbor,
of the stranger,
of the suffering silent.
Quiet all the
me-centered noise
in us
that we
might hear clearly
and convictingly
the cry
of the world.
Then,
fill us to
overflowing
with Your love,
with Your kindness,
with Your gentleness,
with Your compassion,
with Your wisdom,
with Your provision,
and with Your passion,
that we
through Your power
and in Your might,
might meet
each need.
Open our ears, Lord.
In Jesus’ precious name,
we pray –
Amen.
~Stacy
