This isn’t the biggest deal in the world, but I can close my eyes to pray now, and can understand almost every word spoken by Chet and Cory, anyway, when they are leading the prayer!  Obviously, one can pray with their eyes open, but it is a luxury to me to be able to close my eyes and listen to what is being said and not have to lip read to follow along. When you have to lip read to follow along,  your mind is slightly distracted because it is working while trying to listen!  Anyhow, I appreciate small things like that more than ever before!

 I have not been able to attend church since my implant was activated.  Church was cancelled the first day after due to weather, then I was sick on Sunday, and then I had a car accident on Wed. around 4:30.  It took a long time for the police to arrive and take care of the paperwork and then the tow truck to come, then reporting it to my insurance company…I literally hung up from talking to the insurance company about the time we had to leave.  I needed to regroup a bit – especially after having spent the entire day finishing up my grocery and holiday shopping, and then the stress of having an accident. I needed to pull a few notes from my bag of encouragement (given to me by some sweet ladies at my church for days I needed extra encouragement!) and it honestly did help.   I am so thankful there were no injuries.  My car wasn’t so fortunate, but it can be fixed.  The school bus that hit me wasn’t so fortunate, either, but the damage was less extensive to the bus than to my car, obviously.  Let’s just say it has been an eventful week in many ways! I am looking forward to seeing how my hearing will be in a church setting with the sound system, etc.  I hope it will be great!

Last night we had a family Christmas with our children and our grandson.  It was wonderful!  It is very difficult for us to manage a time when we can all get together, so we love it when we are able to do so.  It felt like Christmas!  We did all of the things we traditionally do (including making the “kids, the youngest of which -besides Owen- is 19” all go downstairs at 6pm to pretend to sleep and “wake up” to the stockings that Santa brings!), it was a lovely time. I still have difficulties as you would expect with my hearing in these situations, but it is so much better than we would have imagined! It was a wonderful evening and I will cherish that time with my loved ones.

I look at the events that have happened in my life over the past year and a half and I really can hardly believe how much has taken place.  I feel like I have had a couple of close calls this year, and thank God that I am still here.  I am very aware of how blessed I am – there have been many ups and downs during that time period, but God has always been faithful and I am so grateful for his work in my life.  

I think I will actually finally have a little time today to try my first book on cd.  I am actually looking forward to practicing and seeing how it goes.  I will let you know!

Thank you all for your encouragement and prayers!  I appreciate it!