God Always Wants More for His Children

 

I opened my eyes this morning, blinked, and could see the time on the clock on the dresser!

One year ago today I awoke from eye surgery with no central vision; I had only silver cloudy shadows to navigate. I couldn’t see my loved ones’ faces. I couldn’t navigate outside the walls of home without someone guiding my steps. My independence was, it felt, slipping away.

As the weeks passed, my vision in my good eye slowly returned. It was much better and enabled me to return to a more normal life, but it was not clear and it was not without struggle. It was not safe for me to drive. My refraction was unstable, and I had three pairs of glasses in 10 months as my vision worsened.

I believed I was on a fast track to legal blindness, and I was desperate to maintain enough sight to continue my job and my household duties.

I tried to prepare for life in the shadows by:

• researching products that would help me identify the things I couldn’t see–labels you scan that speak to you their identity

• finding cell phone apps that read text and bar codes aloud

• buying the largest computer monitor I could find

• purchasing magnifiers and reading glasses in every strength I could find

• wearing a contact and reading glasses — wearing glasses over glasses

• creating cards with pictures of things that inspired me, that I never wanted to forget by writing the most colorful descriptions I could pen to help me “see” these things with my heart once I became sightless

• using markers with bold, thick tips and writing large

• collecting audio books for my Bible study and for casual reading

• discovering Facebook groups for seeing-impaired to discover daily life tips and tools

• rethinking my creative work and re-framing it to the confines of limited sight, finding new beauty in the tactile–paint, thread, fabric, buttons, lace

I prayed for sight, but I hardly had the strength or—to be fully transparent—the faith to believe in a total restoration of my sight. My vision was declining so rapidly, and I’d settled for prayers of just not getting worse.

But so many people prayed for my sight. People I may never meet have taken my name and my vision to the throne room of heaven and petitioned God for my healing. My immediate family and close friends boldly prayed for my miracle while I just prayed to keep the cloudy window I had.

Oh, Lord, how often do we do this? How many times have we failed to recognize the richesof our inheritance and been content to wear the rags of our trials as the best we could hope for?

October 5, 2020, I went in for the most recent surgery. A cataract had quickly formed following the 2019 surgery, which is common after the use of gas bubbles in the detached retina procedures. The doctor had prepared me for lower expectations because of the extreme degree of my near-sightedness. He compared the odds of implanting the proper strength lens to taking a foul shot vs. a half-court shot. He was going for the foul shot. I should expect I’d need to wear a contact or glasses to complete the correction of my vision.

When the procedure ended, I opened my eyes. I couldn’t hold my eye open long and it was scratchy, but I opened it long enough to read the branding on the equipment in the surrounding room. Immediately I could see things that had been nothing but a colored blob minutes before. I COULD SEE!!!!!  With no glasses or contacts, I COULD SEE!

Over the coming days, the richness of the colors I saw overwhelmed me. The sky in all its layers and melded colors brought tears. The dimension of the trees and fields around our home were many, not a single, flat version of itself. The faces of my loved ones were absolutely stunning. All of this without glasses or contacts, only reading glasses for close-up reading.

So far my vision is registering 20/30! It had declined to about 20/200, only a few clicks away from the legal blindness I’d resigned myself to as my near future. The doctor can’t believe it. Every time he checks it, he marvels at the results.

And I rarely dared to ask God for this great gift. Lord, forgive my unbelief.

Friends, please don’t settle for where you are. Don’t settle for where it appears we are as a nation. Please don’t settle for broken relationships. Please don’t settle for less than God’s best for your life; believe it is His heart’s desire to give you His best.

Dare to ask God for the biggest things and expect that He is already answering, even if you can’t see it in the natural. This world is so much bigger than what we see and perceive. Our lives matter so much more than what today holds. We are here to honor and glorify Him and lead others to Him. It’s not a dreadful assignment to trudge through and endure until death. Our earthly lives are of eternal importance, and we are ambassadors of truth, grace, mercy and love.

If you’ve read this far, thank you! In today’s world our attention spans, mine included, are shrinking, and focus flees before we can finish readings longer than a few lines, a snapshot or meme .. all the more reason to be sure our daily lives are reflecting God’s best.

I’m overwhelmed today with gratitude for the miracle of my sight. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your faith in my healing when I didn’t have the strength to believe in it for myself. Thank You, God, for your grace and your mercy! Be Thou my vision!

A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel. Proverbs 1:5 NKJV