Spiritual Vision Therapy

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.

It reminded me of the song, "Amazing Grace,"

"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)