Well, hello, my friends, and welcome to the live-inspired podcast Monday Morning

Moments with John O'Leary.

Near the end of a hectic week of speaking, I could feel a coming.

What began as a raspy voice at the start of one talk turned into a whisper by the end of it.

As a sinus infection intensified, my throat began to swell. Swallowing began to hurt, my body began to ache, but the hardest part was not the pain.

It was the silence brought on by her old friend laryngitis.

For a man who makes his living with words, you can still hear it in my voice. Losing my voice felt like

losing part of myself. After a week of quiet, though, as my voice continues to slowly return,

I realized something unexpected. Losing my voice gave me gifts I did not know I needed. Let me tell

you more about it. I began each morning giving thanks.

Silence sometimes provides space for us to do that. Have you noticed? I give thanks for Beth,

for our kids, for our family, for our freedom, for our faith, for meaningful work, for sunshine,

for hot coffee, for cold beer, for life itself. But rarely do I recognize

and give thanks for the gift of my voice. As a child, I went months in the hospital without my voice.

As an adult, I've lost it through laryngitis several times, and yet even still, I still take it for granted.

Forced silence reminded me that the most ordinary gifts are oftentimes the most extraordinary.

Take inventory of the gifts in your lives, my friends.

Bethan I treasure mornings on the porch with coffee and evenings unwinding together.

I like to think that I'm a good conversationalist, a very good speaker and listener.

Turns out, though, family and friends and listeners, like many of us, I talk too much.

This past week, I could not fix, could not respond quickly, could not interrupt anything that you wanted to discuss.

I could only listen.

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