I can't see or speak but I can serve

Hey all!
  It's been a while huh? We'll I've got some pretty neat experiences to share with you since last time and I'm so excited to share! Over this little break I had a few opportunities for class I needed to complete (as always right?). The first is regarding vision. My finance likes to poke fun at me for wearing glasses as often as he gets the chance, if I ever say something like " I can't see that far..." he'll ask "did you put your eyes in today?" referring to my contacts. I know he's always poking fun at me and my poor vision but I'll take that over little to no vision! As part of an experiment assignment for class I was to walk around for 4 hours wearing various masks over my eyes. These masks were created to replicate glaucoma, the loss of an eye, problems of the lens (such as astigmatism), and macular degeneration. What I found to be the most difficult part of this experiment wasn't the fact that part of my vision was missing, but that part of my vision was still intact! I would have rather gone the 4 hours being blind! The whole time my attention was drawn to the portions of the world that I could see. Needless to say this was a difficult assignment to navigate around, especially when trying to write or type!
  Though the loss of vision was frustrating, it was nothing compared to the difficulty of speaking while omitting the letters "L" and "N" from my vocabulary. For this experiment I tried to told a conversation with my fiance, he simply asked me "how was your day?" and I struggled to answer him! What story would have taken me 30 seconds to tell, took me around 10 minutes because I was trying so hard to omit words with "L" and "N". When I thought I was doing alright he would correct me as I accidentally used those consonants, then it would take me another minute to think of a way to rephrase my answer. Though sometimes in life when I'm not asked to speak in such a way I still stumble over words, I'm grateful that I have fluidity in my overall speech.
    Finally, after trying difficult assignments, I found great joy in one last project. Throughout the semester I was asked to perform 5 simple hours of service, that gave me experience working with the special needs community. Service is such a wonderful way to lift the spirit isn't it? I spent 2 of my hours working at the special needs walk-a-thon, 2 at the HANDS program and 1 in service learning. Of all of these my favorite by far was the HANDS program, where our friends would come and make arts and crafts with us on Wednesday nights. This opportunity was so enjoyable because I had time to sit and chat with special friends. One sweet old man knew just about every state and would ask everyone "now where are you from?" if anything I learned from this tender man it as that I need to slow down and take a minute to enjoy anthers company. Another lesson I valued with my time in the special needs community was in the walk-a-thon. I admired so much the attitude of these people! I can't ever think of a time I've done any form of exercise without complaining, but these special friends had the best attitude!

I was so grateful for the opportunity to have these experiences as I was able to better appreciate the body, mind and spirit that God gave me.

--Julie