"Hidden" Blessings

My precious daughter, Lauren, was born in April 2005 with a mild-to-moderate hearing loss in both ears. This was discovered because of a mandatory hearing screening the hospital performs shortly after birth. Lauren failed the hospital test - twice - and we were assured by staff that about 95% of babies who fail in the hospital, pass with flying colors at their one-month retest. Lauren was part of the 5% who don't pass!

By the time she was four months old, Lauren was fitted with her first hearing aids. We have always been so grateful for the hearing screen. Without it, we aren't sure when we would have realized there was a problem. Lauren's hearing loss is not profound, but it is great enough that it caused a speech delay - and a delay in her comprehension of things that others her age already grasp.

Fast-forward: Lauren is almost 6 and doing exceedingly well in all areas. Last April, she had a great check-up at the doctor's office upon turning 5. In August of 2010, Lauren entered Kindergarten and gets to spend half of her day with just two other hearing impaired students as they are taught by their amazingly wonderful Special Ed. teacher. She LOVES it.

This past November, the school performed a vision screening test and I was expecting Lauren to do just great. After all, her vision was 20/30 in both eyes at her 5 year check-up in April. The test results came back and indicated great vision in Lauren's right eye, but only 20/100 in her left eye. We repeated the test at home and sure enough, when covering Lauren's right eye, she said, "I can't see!"

We were pretty concerned - that's a quick deterioration of vision in such a short time. A few days later, we discovered that Lauren's eyes are healthy (no cataracts, tumors, etc!) and that she has refractive amblyopia (lazy eye). This was a relief! And there is hope that with time, her vision can be corrected with the assistance of glasses and eyedrop therapy. And as a bonus, Lauren was VERY excited to find out she would be getting glasses like her big sister, Noelle!

So what does this have to do with my heart for Cambodia? A lot.

Over the past year, my heart has been profoundly and repeatedly touched by the work CGI is doing in Cambodia. My desire to go and be a part of the work God is doing there has only increased with time. I eagerly follow the updates from Chris Alexander when he is in Cambodia and he recently shared about taking several of the women on the sewing team to see the eye doctor. Most, if not all, of these women had never been to the eye doctor, and they were sharing the one pair of glasses they had among them, to do their sewing!!

Chris said something that really struck me. It's something most of us cannot even comprehend. He said that we take a great deal for granted - and then he said: The poor simply do without.

We think we are 'doing without' if we can't go out to dinner or a movie all month. We think we are 'doing without' if we have to do our own nails or highlight our hair at home. We think we are 'doing without' if our computer/laptop/cell phone/ipod is two years old. We think we are 'doing without' if we can't get our kids EVERYTHING they want for their birthday (our 'poor' kids!).

As you and I sit in the comfort of our home, or Starbucks, or library, or wherever we happen to be.. let's GIVE THANKS for all of the 'hidden' blessings that surround us. If you notice in the list above, in all of those cases.. we aren't doing WITHOUT anything. We still have food to eat and probably a TV w/dvd player to watch, we can still do our nails and our hair, we still have a functional computer and cell phone, and our kids are getting SOMETHING for their birthday this year.

As bad as things can seem, we have SO MUCH to be thankful for: we live in warm homes, in safe neighborhoods, with food in the pantry and clothes in the closets. We have more than enough for today.. including hearing screenings and vision screenings, while the poor simply do without.

All of this is to say that I'm awestruck by the amount of blessing that God surrounds us with every day. We might think of them as "hidden" blessings ~ not because they aren't there, but because we can choose to SEE them and give thanks - or not.

Let's choose to SEE today.