Spreading the fragrance of God's grace everywhere
Every day is a new day of discovery! God’s world, both physical and spiritual, is filled with wonder. Come explore God’s world with me as I see it for the first time.
I’m a little embarrassed. I’ve decided I have a very patient husband. Going to Sabino Canyon right after we moved back to Tucson and for the first time since my eye surgery five years ago must have felt like taking a five-year-old who had a new pair of shoes she wanted to show off.
“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”
Isaiah 42:16 NIV
In my younger, more foolish days, I loved to tell what I dubbed a “Helen Keller” joke. Here it is:
Q: How did Helen Keller’s parents punish her?
A: By rearranging the furniture.
I thought it was funny. My mother thought it was cruel. Well, yes, but you have to have a vision issue to fully appreciate the humor. I thought it was funny because it is so so true.
Acquaintances often commented that I functioned quite well as a legally blind person. They were shocked when I told them just how bad my vision was. I did do fine—as long as I was in familiar settings. If I got dumped into the unfamiliar or if my environment changed, obscuring what I already struggled to see, I was suddenly plunged into helplessness. That meant I had to ask for help. And people were surprised because they thought I was so self-sufficient.
I coped by memorizing my environment like a map. I depended on certain things always being in the same place. The salt is in the upper cupboard to the right of the stove, bottom shelf, left hand side. My hand reaches for it without my brain or my eyes needing to engage. The worst kindness would be to clean my house and put my clutter away for me. Don’t touch a thing! I need to remember where things are.
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It’s so easy to take eyesight for granted. We open our eyes in the morning and images appear before us. It’s as regular as the sunrise. That’s why the above meme quote caught my attention. Those visual images aren’t forced on me. Eyesight is a choice. I choose where to focus my eyes.
I asked that question as a group of women on retreat sipped coffee and munched donut holes. We sat at tables covered with autumn color tablecloths and mounded with pumpkins in various stages of ripeness. One lady had hauled dozens from her pumpkin patch to the retreat that morning from her stripped garden that came to an abrupt end with the threat of the first killing frost.
As the guest speaker at the retreat, my morning message was to be on seeing the nature of God through His creation. The retreat planners and I had scheduled an early morning nature walk as the first item on the morning’s agenda. We encouraged the women to either join a small group at a local park or sit outside for a few moments at their home before the retreat’s main session began so they could observe some part of nature. When we all arrived at the retreat center, we gathered in breakout groups to share our discoveries.