Future So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

Larry: "I can't see! I can't see!"
Moe:"What's the matter?"
Larry:"I've got my eyes closed..."

So the doctor says to me, you have vision damage from glaucoma. I didn't know what to say. I was quiet. I still am, really. I knew I had to speak to the youth that night and I knew that my wife was waiting for me to discuss how I felt. So I waited... waited for a feeling. Which one, I'm not sure. I wanted to my faith to rise up and make some bold declarations about "whose report I would believe" and other KJV based songs that somehow sound sooooo spiritual...

I sauntered back out to the receptionist, made small talk, laughed, etc. And then I stepped outside.

Did I mention they had dialated my eyes?

LIGHT! It hurt! Pain... from light. I froze. Not another step.... I couldn't see where I was going. My wife ran inside, got some of those funny makeshift shades that you put on your glasses. Now I looked as silly as I felt. Standing on the sidewalk, trying to see through the pain and the blur. And once the shades were on, everything was dark and blurry, but I could see to move forward. I got in the car, wanting to say something, but finding nothing that fit. So I said nothing.

I went to church, shared the message. Helped some people, before and after services. And then came to work, sat down and got quiet. Quiet.... And I thought about the pain of stepping outside earlier... the shock... and the lesson that I didn't get until now.

Sometimes, when we get truth, it's not some nice comfortable blanket that suddenly wraps around us and makes us happy. Sometimes it hits us like Paul and knocks us to the ground. And we sit stunned by a change of events. At that point, we choose. We walk forward, guessing where we are going, risking the danger of unnecessary suffering, or we can stop. Stop and wait. God may have another person bringing us what we need to make the next step like my wife did. We want to "press on" when God is telling us to be still. We want to try to face the brightness of knowing everything about a situation, when God is trying to show us the mercy of "seeing through a glass darkly".

I don't know what the future holds with this vision stuff. I will stay on treatment. I will believe in healing. But most of all, I will wait, trust and hope in God. For now I see through a glass darkly (and blurrily too!). But I know that He always sees clearly, and I follow Him.

And then I can be in the light as He is the light, and my futures' so bright, I gotta wear shades!