“Stand still and see this great thing the Lord is about to do before your eyes!” — 1 Samuel 12:16
Today, I got glasses…and what I saw made me wonder….
At some point I turned 40. There was a restaurant in Vegas with my family. Sinatra’s Grammy was there. The gold one, not Rosa. And later, a drive up Coast Highway and a room with a view, where I could barely see the sea, obscured by powerlines and train trestles, and by a clarity of sight I hadn’t even known was missing.
I bought my first pair of readers not long after. Menus. Microwave directions. Things I handed to people to read for me. All of this so typical it wouldn’t be worth the mention, but for the fact I hadn’t begun to have children yet and something was breaking. This was a heart squeeze which I downplayed to, “they’re just readers.” I cleaned out Goodwill’s $1.99 motherlode and tucked spares everywhere. “They were all I needed.” My eyes were “fine.”
My parents told me, “Make an appointment. You’re making it worse. You’ll be surprised at the difference.” But I chorused, “I see fine…I just can’t do one little thing.” (Read.) It wasn’t until my eyes started tearing non-stop, leading to apologies during meetings (“I’m not crying”) or dabbing my leaking face like a visited grampa, that I agreed it was time. Again I recited, this time to the doc, “I just need something for reading.” For 20 minutes I read letters on a wall and when he locked the results in place, he said with empathetic reveal, “Okay…that’s for distance.”
I don’t need distance. it’s…it’s just the letters I can’t see. “Yes,” he said, “on the wall across the room.” Progressives. Deflated but hungry for clarity, I counted the seconds until today’s pickup. But when I finally donned my long awaited, highly coveted, literally rose-colored spectacles (just realized that), the first thing I saw was the smile leave my face. The world was electrically vivid. Straight lines. Specks and spots and sparkles. Solid colors I faintly recalled from the 90s. And good lord, how long has my face looked like THAT?! I was disturbed to realize I was capable of forgetting…all of this. I had grown to think that what I saw was all the human eye was capable of seeing. I had lost a gift – and I hadn’t even noticed.
God nudged the illustration: What other vision had faded? What primary gifts deteriorated? Are there functions I find “normal” or “fine” but are far from what’s possible? Am I not even seeking clear sight, but just spiritual “readers” to get by? Like the guideposts of parental advice and runny eyes leading to a physician revealing how little I could see, Lord, lead me into divine appointments with You, and make the needed adjustments.
So I got glasses, and they made me wonder…how long it’s been, when it happened, why I forgot.
So I asked the Lord for spiritual glasses, to make me wonder…at the work of His hands and the view from where He stands.
“Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” (ESV)
