A Patch from My Past

When I was a kid, I had horrible eyesight. One eye was lazy, my right eye, so I had to wear a patch over my left eye for most of my first grade year. It was black like a pirate patch, so even though the six-yr-old boys thought it was cool, it was so NOT COOL to me. If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, I was also really far-sighted, so I had to wear big thick lenses with bifocals. And for those of you who don’t know, they didn’t make the lenses thin and unobtrusive like they do nowadays. I truly did have four eyes!

So I had a pirate patch on my left eye, bold black frames, and a great big eyeball, my right one, magnified through the bifocal. I looked like Mr. Magoo meets Popeye!

But here’s the irony. While everyone was going through all this trouble to help me see better, all I really wanted was to be blind to my circumstances.

Why? Because through those lenses, I saw hate. I saw abuse & pain. I saw drunkenness & anger & despair. I saw beautiful things too, but the ugliness of my circumstances shoved the good out of my mind’s eye. I had a serious astigmatism deep down in my heart and soul that needed correcting, and a patch wasn’t going to do the trick.

As I grew up, my eyesight improved some. No more bifocals, a bit thinner lenses, a little more style in those frames. At the same time, my spiritual eyes were seeing more clearly too. My circumstances didn’t change, but I began to see God magnified through them instead of the other way around.

I began to see how God had been there for me as a young hurting child, and how He had comforted me each time I called out to Him in desperation and fear. And by His grace, He revealed to me that He was not only my Comforter, but my Redeemer as well. He corrected my vision with 2 Corinthians 5:7, showing my lazy eye that if I would “live by faith” and “not by sight,” I would see Him up close and personal, big and tall—fully able.

If you could see me now, you wouldn’t see any eyeglasses on my face. But I’m wearing some…because my gracious Father offered me a pair. I call them my Faith-colored glasses. Through them, He has become larger to me than any circumstance I faced in the past or will face today or in the future. Through them, I see His light instead of darkness. Through them, I see hope and strength enough for each new day.

What about you? Do negative situations, big, small or medium cause you to take your eyes off God’s ability to help you through them? Is the Lord in your peripheral vision while your circumstances stand large in front of you? Are you squinting to see any beauty from the ashes of your past? Do you see only hopelessness in your future?

I wish I could say that I never put my faith-colored glasses on the shelf, but I do. So friends, let’s challenge one another to live God large. Let’s commit to see life—past, present & future--through His eyes, walking by faith and not by sight.

“I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened

in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you,

the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints,

and His incomparably great power for us who believe…”

Ephesians 1:18-19a

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