There is a gray bubble on my IPhone 4 messages. How do I get rid of it?

[iMore Question]

There is a gray bubble on my IPhone 4 messages with 0.00 on the right hand side. I can not see what I am typing. How do I get rid of it?

 

[worthydchick]

How do you get rid of it ? Mine started doing this after one of the last updates on my iPhone 6

 

[Kwhat21]

it's simple.

settings
messages
turn on character count