You don’t know what you got till its gone.

One thing as a guitar player since I was 5, I have always been proud of is my ability to hear and enjoy hearing music and sounds around me.  I always had great hearing. I played guitar by ear and when I joined the Navy I leaned on my ears to do my job.  I was a Cryptologist which I listened via headphones all day and heard lots of static all day. When I retired from Navy,  I still had perfect hearing! God really blessed me with that! As a minister, I also needed both physical/natural hearing with my ears and spiritual hearing of my heart.  God had blessed me with being a hearer in the spirit more than a seer.  I never knew how much I relied on my hearing  with my ears until I woke up one morning and could not hear well in my right ear.

On September 1, 2017, I woke up noticing a strange feeling in my right ear-felt like cotton stuck in my ear and sounded around me sounded muffled.  During the first week, I treated this myself and used over the counter sinus medications.  No improvement and my right ear still felt plugged and congested.  Julie suggested I go walk-in-clinic at the VA and get it checked out. I did.  The nursing staff could not determine what happened… and did nothing.  No improvement noted. The following week, I went to my civilian primary care doctor and he gave me allergy meds and steroids. Still no improvement and  by now my right ear continued to feel plugged and additional decreased hearing noted with speech and sounds around me.

As I was talking to my wife, Julie, I had a great thought. Duh, my wife is a Audiologist!!! She agreed to test my hearing!  I agreed since she can confirm that  all is well. So yesterday I let her do a comprehensive hearing exam.  The look on her face showed the results were not good!  As a wife, she could not treat me,  So today, I had my hearing checked by my Audiologist. He tested me two months prior and knew my previous result was normal hearing in both ears.  What I had suffered the last month was confirmed-mild to severe loss of hearing in my right ear of unknown etiology and he also had no idea how and why.  I can still hear words but reduced hearing in the high frequency range.  I was told most likely it will not return. This is not what I wanted to hear. I don’t know what this will do to my playing guitar.   From my experience, please protect your hearing, I am glad I did. I want to give a special shout out to the Audiology Department my wife works at. I am very impressed with their professionalism and how they are.

The reason why I mentioned the hearing in the natural, this also applies to how we hear in the spirit.

I moved to Texas a year ago and I am concentrating on developing the ministry God gave me and as such I am not on staff anymore as a Pastor. I admit I started slacking on reading the bible and I noticed not long ago I started not hearing God as clear as when I was working as a Pastor. I had gotten used to just hearing Gods voice not having to really work to listen.  I started noticing it quieter or better yet what I was NOT hearing.  I have always said that the natural is the manifestation of the spiritual. Now I have to ask why, what is the reason, is there a reason? I think that God will get ahold of you and get your attention whatever it takes, and I am determined to make an effort to get closer and listen to get it back.

Make sure you appreciate your hearing both spiritual and natural, you don’t know what you got till its gone.

Blessings.

Bishop Jackson Plant

Plant Ministries