"Poker Face" by Lady Gaga

"I am blessed." I feel that too often this phrase is used, and not often enough believed. We use this phrase when things are nice, when we are happy but how often do we use it when we are put upon by the negatives of life. Only recently have I begun to recognize that the challenges of our lives are blessings, though less disguised than we give them credit for.

Ever since I can remember I've been smart. I don't say this to brag please bear with me until my point can be made from this fact. School was only ever a challenge for me because of poor motivation to complete assignments in a timely manner. I was lazy. Most of my life I have been the person who was asked the meaning of a word or what is a word that fits a meaning. I've been asked about math, science, history, literature, and many other topics throughout my time as a student and answered as best I could given that I am no expert nor do I seek to be one. Until recently I hadn't considered the pride that has fostered in me over what has been a standard of my life for so many years.

On Wednesday May 12, I found that the left side of my face was all but unresponsive. I couldn't move my a cheek, lips or eyebrow on that side of my face. I quickly discovered that this has an effect on my abilities to eat, drink, emote, blink and speak. This last one is by far the worst. I'm a speaker, professionally and socially I like to speak. For the past 5 years or so I've always felt comfortable with speaking in front of crowds or groups, regardless of how well I knew them. I enjoy talking in social situations (as any friend can tell you). Recognizing all of that I had also become proud of my ability to speak. 3 weeks ago in Mobile while joking with my dad I even said, "I don't really have any skills that don't involve talking, but such a skill that is!"

The crossroads of these two points of pride is that I like to sound smart. I use words that are less common. Initially this began because I was tired of using the same few words over and over. I wanted to express that I was happy, with out saying "happy" multiple times. So I started picking up new words such as joyous, ecstatic or something similar to that.

Somewhere along the way as people began to note the variety in my vocabulary, it became a joke that (to quote Hammitt) "Most people write essays the way they speak, but you do the opposite: you speak the way you would write an essay." The real truth is that I slowly became proud of this recognition of my sounding smart, joking though it was.

But now no matter what word I use, no matter, how witty I may try to sound, the voice produced carries a muffled version of my attempt. It is usually recognizable but I know that it sounds as if I've had a stroke. As if maybe my mind isn't what it could be, or at least what it is. And I am so blessed.

I've been freed of a pride I've carried with me for so long. I don't know that my attempts at a better vocabulary will stop, but I do know that their value for sounding like an intellectual is lost. I know that I'll recover from this eventually, and I'll be able to speak normally again. I also know that this could come back at any time; it lives in the back of my mind as a constant reminder of the power of God to give and take as he chooses. I was given a gift and treasured it as my own, as some accomplishment or development of my own, and I was given another gift to show me that my feelings for the first gift were flawed.

I'm not a good speaker right now, in fact if I don't concentrate I'm somewhat difficult to understand. I can only smile with one side of my face, and I smile often. I'll carry a droop in my face for the rest of my life because of my condition, a continuous reminder that what I was given wasn't mine, it was God's. He gave me those skills so that I could share his word with those around me, both from a pulpit and a dinner table, where ever he sends me I am meant to do speak, and now I know this: I'm not meant to speak because I'm a skilled speaker, I'm a good speaker because I'm meant to speak.

Thank you Lord for sharing with me the gift of speech and eloquence, and thank you so much for tempering my pride in those gifts with a knowledge of whose skills those are through Bell's Palsy

The song for the day is "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga. Yes she is the creepiest professionally trained artist in recent memory, but as far as the left side of my face goes you "Can't read my poker face."

-matt

PS If I can't laugh a little at my condition I'd probably lose my mind