Every once in a while one of my children will
say something profound. Something that holds such weight that it could change
his or her life.
One such
time, my Little Man had something to ask me. He looked up at me in his usual
way—head cocked to one side and one eye closed. Then, he straightened up
and strained his eyes to focus on my face and mentioned, "Mommy, why
do you have four eyes?"
Mind you,
Little Man was almost eight and never asked me this before. Taken back, I asked him to count how many
eyes I had.
"One,
two...three, four. Four, Mommy."
"Are
you sure I have four eyes?"
He nodded with
furrowed brow. It's as if he realized for the first time that there
was something not right about that.
No wonder
he had a hard time looking at me when he talked to me. It took my son, putting two and two together
to show me something I had been overlooking for his whole eight years of life.
It turned
out, through getting an evaluation with a vision therapist, he saw a double image a lot of the time.
His two eyes had insufficient convergence, meaning they didn't work together to
make one whole picture of what he was seeing.
Many times
he saw two pictures. And, it was usually when he had to look up.
Needless
to say, he started going to vision therapy on a regular basis and I started
seeing results right away. He was reading more, looking at me straight on
when he talked to me, and he was able to catch a baseball for the first time—could
literally keep his eye on the ball and catch it without it hitting him or going
right past him.
He was
delighted about his newfound skill. It was if the world was new to him. Because he really was seeing it for the first
time.
"Amazing
grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved
a wretch like me.
I once was
lost, but now am
found.
Was blind,
but now I see."
For most
of my youth, I didn’t see. At thirteen years old, I was lost, without any
sort of way seeing or connecting with God. I already
knew that I'd done bad things in my life that I was a sinner, and I didn't
deserve to be in the presence of God or to spend an eternity with Him.
No, I
didn't deserve to go to heaven. Because of all my sins, I deserved to go
to hell. And that terrified me to the point that I was afraid to pray.
It was if
I had a vision problem. I could not see God in my life. Because He
seemed so far away.
But, then
I heard it—the good news. That God gave me His amazing grace. He sent
His Son as the Savior of the world who took
away my sin and gave me His righteousness. The moment I closed my eyes and prayed, envisioning Christ, dying on the
cross for my sins, I could finally see.
If God
would send His one and only Son to die
for me, He must love me and has truly forgiven me. By grace, I am saved (Ephesians 2:8,9).
And, what
an amazing gift it is: to be able to see, to wake up and find purpose for each and every
day, to know I am loved, valued, and pursued by God.
I cannot
thank Him enough.
To be
blind to His presence in my life and then be able to see He is alive and that there is more to
this world than meets the eye is life-changing.
It's like
the two men walking along the road toward the small village of Emmaus. They
were perplexed about Jesus dying on the cross and didn't know that He had risen
from the dead. They could not see that
there was a reason behind it all.
"As
they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up
and walked along with them; but they were
kept from recognizing him...
When he
was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began
to give it to them. Then their
eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he
disappeared from their sight. They asked
each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he
talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke
24:13-34)
The saying
goes, that seeing is believing, but maybe it's the other way around.
Believing
is truly seeing.
I am
thankful that my Little Man can see a lot better now, but even more thankful
that through Christ, all of us may seek the face of God and find Him.
"My
heart says of you, 'Seek his face!' Your face, Lord, I will seek." (Psalm 27:8)