Four-Eyes For Life!

Some of us struggle with nearsightedness, some with farsightedness. Some of us, as we engage in the aging process, experience what is termed Presbyopia (aka: old eyes), ‘losing our ability to focus sharply on objects that are close’. I struggle with an additional type of vision impairment.

I struggle sometimes to see beyond myself.

Did I just say that out loud?

No! Oh good.

It’s somehow less powerful in print than spoken aloud.

As I was sitting in the break room yesterday trying to read a book that is just not capturing me and as I daydreamed and turned pages I realized, in my literary absence, I was mentally reading my own story. It wasn’t pretty.

You see (no pun intended)…God put a pair of glasses on me today. They’re not new…as a matter of fact I’ve had them on several times this year already. Apparently I keep forgetting about this impairment, but lucky me, God never forgets.

These glasses enable me to see myself through His eyes. It wasn’t all bad! I saw the passion I have to encourage others. I saw my love of art. I saw my desire for a deeper relationship with God. I saw how blessed I am with a husband that always puts me before himself. I saw the family and friends God has blessed me with. I saw the richness of my life in material things and more importantly richness in love and freedom, all provided by God.

Then I saw something that took awhile to focus on because it was too close and I, being in my EARLY 40’s, am still in denial about those funky little half-glasses my mother keeps trying to push my way by calling ‘magnifiers’. When the UP CLOSE me came into focus in stunned me. It probably shouldn’t have and it may not surprise any of you…but God showed me the thing that is closest to my line of site before any of my passions or blessings or love or freedom is…ME! Me, myself and I…we are so ‘in my face’ so to speak, that I have to look THROUGH myself to see the rest of the picture.

It can’t be! It just can’t be! I am spiritually visually impaired! That’s when I heard the increasing vibration of the singsong melody that goes: Me, me, me, me, it’s all about me!

I had heard of others struggling from this ‘selfishness’ but not MOI! I am the one that only thinks of others. I am the one that hears you when you speak. I am the one that seeks YOU in all my ways! I am a child after your own heart, Lord!

The Lord showed me through whose eyes I saw infertility, and professional fulfillment and success and financial provision and all things “KIM”, even my own call to ministry. My vision was being impaired by my own will.

I tried to rub the vision from my line of site, but it was there. Sure it got blurry again for a moment, but the longer I sat there the more clear it became. I have taken my eyes off the Creator and put them firmly on myself. Everything I see is clouded first by the filter of ME! This is NOT a good place to be.

A LONG, LONG time ago (I think I even mentioned it here), probably before I had anyone reading this, I asked my husband if he thought I was selfish. Remember that conversation?

He said: “On some level, all people are selfish.” And if you know my husband at all, he wasn’t being cutting, just completely honest. Anything my husband says…is truth as he knows it, or it won’t be uttered.

It wasn’t the answer I wanted and in these question/answer games I’m looking for a specific answer (my husband needs a bit more training on this game’s rules)…so I waved it off because I KNEW beyond a shadow of a doubt I was NOT selfish. At least not compared to……

Like I’m going to go down that route…you’re just trying to trap me!

It dawned on me I never “CLEP-ed” out of this test. The God first, others next…me last…test. God has brought the ‘dummies’ version of this ME ME ME test because I’m too blinded by myself to see it otherwise. This ‘dummies’ test even has it’s own pair of carnival glasses. I’ll tell you right now…if it means I’ll be four-eyed for life, I’ll wear them every single day until that cloudy interference is gone…and I can clearly see the world; myself included, through God’s eyes.

Here’s hoping you have a VISUALLY UNIMPAIRED Thursday!