I was in Mr. Heinrichs’ 4th grade when I got my first contact lenses. One afternoon in the middle of a lesson on something important, I rubbed my eye and everything to the right of me went fuzzy. Convinced the lens had popped out, I had the entire class crawling on the floor trying to locate a nearly invisible tiny circle. After a few minutes of pandemonium a classmate stared me in the eye and said “I think I see it!” With sincere apologies to Mr. Heinrichs, it turns out the contact had shifted from my pupil and wasn’t lost at all.
My childhood was filled with eye doctor visits (“lens one or lens two?”) followed by new stronger prescriptions (“look at all the leaves on the trees!”). It was always my deep desire to be able to see the world more clearly. And for many years I thought I did. But then I entered my 40’s and what I thought I knew about the world – and my eyesight – began to change.
In the famous chapter on love, the apostle Paul so poetically wrote:
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully,…”
I Cor 13:12
These days as I try to read words printed in what surely is a smaller and smaller font size, I really feel that “dimly” part. Issues have two, or seventeen, sides; people are complex; grey is a more hospitable place to hang out. I love to learn and seek understanding, but my experiences are so limited and my view can be myopic. So I ask a lot of questions, listen to different perspectives, and ask God for discernment. My newest contacts are two different prescriptions – one for close up and one for distance. I don’t love it, but it reminds me of what Paul said, that in this life I will never see with perfect clarity.
What I've learned so far... 