I have an appointment to get my eyes checked for new glasses. I mentioned it to a friend and pretty soon a few of us were discussing all our funny stories about the "old days" when wearing glasses meant having to balance what felt like a two pound weight on the bridge of your nose. And how kids used to hate having to wear glasses - we were called "four eyes" and "coke bottle." This story that my mom told me years ago popped into my head...and Mom, I apologize in advance if I have any of the facts wrong, but this is how I remember the story.
When she was six (back in the 1940s), her teacher told my grandmother that her daughter was "retarded" because she wasn't learning. My grandmother, being a hard headed Swede knew her little girl wasn't retarded, so she took her to the doctor, who referred them for an eye exam. The doc said she was legally blind and prescribed glasses - she has astigmatism, and is both near and far sighted. All the way home, she sat in the back of the car taking her glasses off and on. When they asked her why she kept doing that, she told them she was looking at the leaves on the trees. She had never seen them clearly before. She had never seen her own parents faces clearly. Up to that point, everything had been just blurry shapes. For weeks, she went around re-examining her world, seeing things clearly for the first time in her young life. The petals of a rose, leaves of grass, ladybugs...everything was new and wonderful.
I feel like there's a parable in this somewhere - maybe about putting on our spiritual glasses to see clearly what God wants us to do in our daily lives. I'm still working on that part...
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