Glasses and the Past

When I was in third grade it became increasingly difficult to see the chalkboard at school. My mom made me an eye doctor appointment, and within a couple of weeks I had my first pair of eyeglasses.

I wore glasses all the way into adulthood. I tried contact lenses, but my astigmatism made them difficult to wear. Dr. Barniske told me that my eyes were shaped like footballs. I thought that was kind of cool, but it did make contacts hard to wear.

In my forties I got together the money to have LASIK eye surgery. The night before I had the procedure I made the mistake of watching a video that showed what was going to happen. My advice to you is that if you decide to have LASIK done, DO NOT WATCH THE VIDEO FIRST! Trust me, watching how they are going to slice the front off of your eyeball will not help you sleep the night before you have it done.

Since I had the procedure done relatively late in life, the doctor informed me that I would need to get glasses eventually. That time has come. A couple of years ago I got progressive lens eyeglasses. Progressive lens is a nice way of saying that the lenses cover a wide range of focal ranges, none of which seem appropriate for what you are doing. The first few days with my new glasses involved a lot of nodding as I tried to get used to looking through a particular part of my glasses. People either thought I was agreeing with them or having a seizure. I wasn’t doing either, I was just trying to see them!

I’ll be honest. When I figured out that I was going to have to wear glasses again, I was more than a little disappointed. I had hoped that glasses were a thing of the past, but there they were, propping on my nose just like the old days. It is déjà vu all over again…

A lot of times our past comes back to haunt us. Whether it was a careless remark that someone didn’t forgive us for, or a deed we did that we thought nobody would ever find out about, our past can rear its ugly head when we least expect it.

The one place your past will never come up is with God. It is amazing to me that even though God knows everything, he chooses to forget my past once he has forgiven me. Once God forgives us, we are forgiven. Hebrews 8:12 says, “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never remember their sins.” Your family and friends can’t make that promise. Your boss can’t (and probably won’t) make you that promise. Nobody makes that promise but God. There is such an amazing freedom in knowing that your sins, mistakes, transgressions, whatever you want to call them, are forgiven by the one who knows EVERYTHING you do.

You can have that freedom, no matter how bad you think you are. Just say a simple prayer telling God that you need him. You are ready for a new life, you are ready to accept his gift of salvation and forgiveness. Once you have prayed that prayer it is time to find a good church that can help you take the next steps in living for God. Trust me, you don’t want to fall back into that old way of living. You know how bad that turns out!

Enjoying God’s freedom, but not my glasses… Jerry