Teaching me to See.

This week I am currently on vacation with my family at Henry’s Lake State Park which is just about 20 minutes West of Yellowstone.

Last year, I was actually here around the same time, but something has changed since then. This year I have glasses.

I didn’t realize I needed them until a couple months ago. My husband and I were standing in the grocery store at the end of the aisle and I had to walk halfway down to read the markers that list what food was at the end. He could read them from the end of the aisle. After that incident, and multiple others where he tested my eyesight and asked me “Can you read this? Can you see that?’, I finally decided it was time to see the eye doctor, even though I imagined he would send me a way with a clear bill of health and a note to my husband that said “Your wife can see fine. Please stop bugging her.” The doctor didn’t send me away with that note. He sent me away with a prescription. For glasses. My husband was right. I was nearsighted. I couldn’t see things far away.

I was disappointed to say the least. I had never worn glasses and was worried about how annoying they’d be, how they’d change my appearance, what people would think of me.

A couple weeks later, when they called me back into the office to pick up my new glasses, I didn’t notice that much of a difference until I walked outside, into the sunshine.

It was as if the world before was like a dream you can barely remember, 2D, grainy, like a picture taken by a film camera. When I put on the glasses everything came into focus. Colors were more vibrant. Trees took shape. The world had depth and definition. I stood there in the parking lot of my eye doctor, with my hands slack at my sides and tears forming in my eyes. I didn’t realize the world could be so beautiful.

You can imagine my delight upon returning to Yellowstone National Park, one of the most unique places in our country, full of alpine forests, gushing geysers and breathtaking canyons.

I loved this place the first time I came here.

And this time, with new eyes, I love it even more.

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I could say so many things about what I’ve learned since getting glasses like how you have to acknowledge you have a problem before you seek out help, or how you scared you can be to accept the truth, even though it’s better than the darkness you’ve known before.

I think the most important thing I’ve learned so far is how numb you can become to the world around you. For the last few years, my eyesight was getting progressively worse and worse, but I didn’t even know it. I took my eyesight for granted. I took the world I live in for granted.

I recently watched a Mel Gibson movie called “Signs”. In it, Mel Gibson plays a former Episcopal priest who has abandoned his faith due to his wife’s tragic death. One day, him and his family discover crop circles in their cornfield which suggests extraterrestrial life. The movie is the families journey to accept the signs around them, not only of the aliens that invade their world, but of the higher power, still in control, despite their doubts and devastation.

During the movie, the main character, Graham, keeps having flashbacks to the scene of his wife’s death, where she was hit by a car and pinned to a tree. In her last moments, she started speaking in what he thought at the time was seemingly random thoughts.

Near the end of the movie, however, her words become warnings which are critical to their survival.

One of the things she tells him is simply one word-

“SEE.”

I’ve lived for years with eyes that are hindered, unable to take in the light around me. There’s been mountains and meadows full of beauty divine right in front of me and I didn’t know it.

I couldn’t see it.

But when I got my glasses, it was as if instead of “let there be light,” God came close and whispered “let there be sight.” I was re-awakened to the reality of his goodness, the artistry of his creation and the purity of his nature.

I was like Graham in the movie “Signs”. I had become numb to the world around me. I couldn’t see the clear indicators of God’s presence. Tragedy will do that. Challenges will do that. Stress will do that.

But God was so gracious to draw me back, as he always does time and again. Like that first time I viewed the world with new eyes, his mercies are new every morning.

And they are beautiful.

More challenges are coming my way. It’s tempting to center on the things nearby. The things present and in my reach. But God is lifting my focus beyond the temporary, to new distances, in his word and his world. He’s opening my eyes to truth and beauty more breathtaking than I can imagine.

The glass is still dim this side of heaven, but
he’s teaching me to see.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall SEE God.” Matthew 5:8