Hearing is now at a premium.

My friend recently e-mailed me with a message: “I saw this, and thought of you. What a hoot!”

Apparently, a folder of a client named Bonnie Pearson had come across her work desk. With our little group, Pearson already had quite a reputation that started while sharing what makes us thankful with one another at one of our small group Bible studies.

First, I have to explain, I have a hard time hearing out of my left ear. So if someone speaks to the left of me, I often don’t quite catch what is said.

“I’m thankful I get to share about Jesus with other students at school,” shared my friend, new to the college scene in her mid-years and a year into finding her faith. “It was such a God thing.”

The student had asked her what the lettering on her T-shirt meant: “Body piercing saved me.” Picturing lots of holes in ears, nose, tongue and a slew of potentially unmentionable places, the inquirer was enlightened by the continuing message on the back side of the shirt, a depiction of Jesus on the cross, wrists and ankles pierced.

However, my ear failed to pick up this particular translation.

“Bonnie Pearson?” I pitched, interested in this gal who I had not heard about before. “Who’s Bonnie Pearson, and what does she have to do with you getting saved? Did she lead you to Christ?”

After a few stunned moments, my mistaken interpretation had us all howling.
And, as humor often does, that set the course for the night.

Want to know what a certain Bible verse means?

Ask Bonnie Pearson.

How about what steps to do to better your life?

Bonnie Pearson.

This mighty women had some kind of “in” with God I almost envied.

How to quell such sinful thoughts?

Take it to Bonnie Pearson.

Well, you get my drift.

Why one day at a former workplace, I thought I heard the ad salesman talking about a new business. Not wanting to miss out on a story, I parried, “Pyscho shop? Where’s that? Would they be interested in talking to me?”

Blank stares came my way.

“Well, I certainly could shop there,” I said, laughing.

Still confusion reigned.

“What do they sell there anyway,” I asked, curiosity killing me.

“Bikes.”

Cycle shop! Oh woe. Another session needed with Bonnie Pearson.

It could be worse. I have a friend who is way harder of hearing than me. We have to shout into the phone to converse, and conversations are getting louder every time we connect.

“I wear a hearing aid now, but it doesn’t really help much,” she told me recently.

My reply, “Why wear it then?”

Apparently people who notice she has one speak louder. Amplification on a pauper’s budget, she contends, works just fine for now.

She had thought about an implant, but apparently because of the shape of her ear, was turned down as a candidate. So now our conversations are often audio-challenged.
During our last conversation, I told her about I had mixed up Jesus’s ultimate sacrifice for our sins with “Bonnie Pearson.”

“Body piercing?” she retorted. “My friend has that T-shirt. Isn’t it great!”
Amazing!

Most of the time I hear well; most of the time she doesn’t.

She gets it; I don’t.

Must have been a Bonnie Pearson moment.