Random Gratuitous Celebration Post

I'm planning to take Monday off, so I'm not sure if I'll get a review from my latest read posted then or not. Meanwhile, today's a big day to celebrate two things:

Tonight marks the kickoff of the 17 greatest weeks of the year. College football season officially begins tonight, and it's a really good thing. Okie State kicks off their season on Saturday with a mammoth road game between the hedges. Not sure whose brilliant idea that was, but if we lose I hope they get fired! Either way, there's nothing better than college football. If you need me on a Saturday for the next 17 weeks, I'll be on the couch.

On a more serious note, I did something last night that two years ago I wasn't sure I would ever do again. Back in February I wrote a post talking about my battle with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, a syndrome that attacked the 7th cranial nerve and paralyzed the right side of my face. It affected my hearing, my eyesight, and left me looking like a person made of plastic placed too close to the furnace.

As an athletic-type-person, one of my favorite outlets is playing softball. During college and seminary, I was a fairly decent left center fielder. I wasn't lightning fast, but I didn't miss a lot of balls. Ramsay Hunt changed that, because the muscles in my right eye were paralyzed and didn't allow me to follow the ball when I ran. I tried playing once after RHS, but there's something about a rock-hard ball coming at your face combined with a jiggly eye that made the excitement a little too stressful for me.

Eye muscle is one of the things I haven't regained since RHS - perhaps because they don't make dumbbells for that. So, I figured softball days were over. That was, until one of the single guys invited me to sub for his men's team this week. I told him my issue, and he stuck me in the infield where my jiggly eye would only have to react, not bounce. And it worked. I had a blast, played decent, and I'm back in the game baby!

I've regained about 90 percent of the movement in my face since RHS. The doctors say I won't get any more back (But then again, they said I wouldn't get any back in the first place... what do they know?). Even so, I'm cool with that. Though you might not be able to tell anything was ever wrong with me, I can still tell every time I look in the mirror. And it's a constant reminder that God's purposes are bigger than our momentary light afflictions. Every time I look in the mirror, I remember that God is faithful to even me. Jiggly eye and all.

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