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I wear glasses. Well, actually, I wear contacts because I don’t like to wear my glasses. You would think something so close to your eyes would not get banged into, but when you have boys you are always getting banged into and glasses are not a safe thing to wear.
S3 began kindergarten this year. In order for him to go to school, he needed his vision checked. Of course, I didn’t pay attention to this fact until the weekend before school began. I brought him to the local Walmart that has a box the kids look into, they tell the lady what the picture is of and I get a little slip to hand in at school. It’s a breeze, I had been assured. Except S3 failed this test. He was so intrigued with the box and how they got the pictures in it and he wanted to see the lady make the pictures big and small again. I shopped and brought him back but he still wanted those pictures out of the box. She failed him and I was furious over the whole ordeal.
I took him to our local pediatrician’s office the week school began. Our great pediatric nurse knew what had happened and took him aside, pumping him up to pass the ‘easy’ test. He failed again, much to the shock of both she and I.
I had to walk across the hall and make an appointment with my eye doctor so they could pass him once and for all. S3 seemed to be enjoying trying to take the tests, enjoying them a bit too much in my impatient opinion.
They asked me a bunch of questions about his vision and I assured them he was fine. They began the process of checking his vision and found that, he indeed, did seem to be having a difficult time seeing. I figured that would happen, I mean, we are at the eye doctor. They do need us to buy glasses, right?
They looked deeper and found he had a serious eye problem. Corrected with glasses, perhaps corrected completely one day, but the fact was he had not seen properly since birth. His vision was seriously in need of help. And quickly.
We shopped around for the blue glasses that best fit his face. All the while I was wondering how I would keep these on his face, how they would not be bumped into. S3 wanted the big sunglasses that looked like bug eyes but figured the blue ones with just regular glass would work too.
I had watched as the doctor had checked his vision and I watched the light in S3’s face as he realized he could indeed see the birthday cake, or car, or anything else that happened to flash up on the wall. As a mom, I felt horrible that I had not realized his need sooner. As a doctor looking at the situation, they assured me we would have had no idea without the thorough exam that he was suffering from poor vision.
I love how God uses just such situations
to reveal Himself more deeply to
us.
I wanted to share the very personal way
God used this to show me an
important lesson.
I am my children’s mom. God put these four boys in my husband’s and my life to raise them in the Godly way they should go. It is up to us to keep them on track at this point in their life, keep them on the ‘straight and narrow’. So I had better know the truth of what I am teaching them. How often don’t I just assume I know? I have depended upon the upbringing of my parents – which I could not have done with out – to teach my children now. If I am not in the Word myself, how am I going to be able to teach my children the truth? How do I know if I’m well when I am not being regularly examined, if I don’t have someone who loves me enough to say “Silly girl, you are seeing it the wrong way!” and then help me find the correct way to see the situation. God’s way.
This point was driven home to me with S3’s glasses. I was 99% sure that his vision was just fine and dandy. There was nothing wrong with him at all. But it took a trip to a special physician to point out to me what I could not see with my own eyes.
I need to keep going to the Great Physician, to God, to make sure that I am doing what is right, raising our boys according to his word. Because I can be 99% sure I am correct, but I may be 100% wrong. I need that trip on my knees to God, visiting in His Word, listening to Him, to know how ‘well’ we are. There are those in our lives to point us the way we should go like the pediatric nurse and the impatient woman at Walmart, but until I go to the Physician Himself, I am just pointed in that direction. I have to do it myself. It’s great I am in church, learning in service and Sunday school, but until I am on my own with God, I am just ‘pointed in the right direction’.S3’s glasses will get banged into, they will be difficult to get used to. But the outcome of him wearing them will far out weigh him not having them. Sometimes I feel like the Christian life “bumps” into others, causing discomfort and awkwardness. But the outcome of living for my loving Father far out weighs turning my back to the truth of God.
The song, “What do I know of Holy?” by Addison Road is one that always gives me goose bumps. I don’t have the album, but there is a line in the song (so I don’t have an exact quote) that talks about praying but she says all the words instead. I could have gone to the dr’s and told them all the reason’s why I didn’t think S3 should have glasses and walked out feeling better, I had explained it all to them, and S3 would have been just as vision impaired. It’s only when we stop, listen, act…that is when it changes.
What if I had told the optometrist she had no idea what she was talking about? What if I had told S3, “you know, honey, if you want those hideous sunglasses instead of real glasses, that’s okay because that is what you want.” What if I get these glasses for S3, he puts them on and says they are too hard to wear and I say “oh, that’s okay honey, you don’t have to wear them. We just had to buy them and that was all it took for you to see clearly.”
We need to act out what God has taught us. It’s only by S3 wearing them daily his vision will be improved. The moment he takes them off, his vision is wrong. The moment I turn my back to God, my vision is wrong, my life is wrong, my heart is wrong. It’s only by me turning to God daily that my heart condition improves, therefore leading to a life improvement.
I hope these words that seem to have tumbled onto the computer screen give you reason to pause and consider, “How is my vision? When was the last time I went to the Great Physician for a check up?” There is no time like the present.
