By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org
I have worn glasses for more than 50 years. It’s hard to find photos of me when I was a kid when I didn’t wear glasses.
It wasn’t easy when I began wearing glasses in the fourth or fifth grade. I was called “four eyes” more times than I can count. Plus, back then, there was not the assortment of frames we have today, so they were basically the black frames which made me look like a “nerd.” And, yes, some of my “friends” are reading this and chuckling, thinking, “Nothing has changed.”
I don’t remember much from those days except that with glasses I was finally able to see. It made a huge difference.
Over the years I became used to my glasses. They became a part of who I was. When many people began to choose the convenience of contact lenses, I opted to keep the glasses.
Fast forward about 50 years and the aging process caught up with me recently when my optometrist told me I had cataracts. I knew things did not seem as clear as in the past, but I didn’t think it was that bad until he had me cover my right eye and read the top line on the chart with my left eye. What chart? That convinced me it was time for surgery.
Lonnie Wilkey
But God blessed me and my surgery went off without a hitch, and as the Johnny Nash song goes, “I can see clearly now.” Well, almost.
For the first time in five decades I can see at a distance. The sky looks bluer, the grass looks greener. But when I sit down and pick up a book or newspaper, what used to be clear is now fuzzy. My doctor tells me that eventually he might give me prescription glasses again, but the plan now is to use reading glasses.
I have had to relearn how to see. Everything is reversed from what I have been used to for 50-plus years. When I go to bed at night I reach to take off my glasses (which I no longer wear) and the first thing I do in the morning is to reach for my glasses, which of course are not there.
My wife, Joyce, is the smart one in the family. I have a tendency to misplace things (I never lose stuff) so she had me to go to a local store and buy several reading glasses for a dollar a pair. Good thing I did. Within the first couple of days, I broke one pair and lost another.
So, I am adjusting. I count myself blessed that I have the gift of sight. That is something we should never take for granted. I recently reread John 9 about Jesus providing sight to the beggar who had been blind all of his life. I can only imagine how he felt when he could see the clouds in the sky, the mountains in the distance, etc. He had to be truly amazed at what Jesus did for Him.
Being able to “see more clearly now” is a reminder that things can cloud our vision. The same holds true for our spiritual vision as well. May all of us be on guard for anything that keeps us from seeing God and His will for our life clearly. We must never allow spiritual cataracts to cloud our vision and keep us from serving an almighty and faithful God. B&R
