STAND STILL & SEE

By Amy Marie Bartlett

“Stand still and see this great thing the Lord is about to do before your eyes!” — 1 Samuel 12:16

Recently, I got glasses…and what I saw made me wonder….

At some point I turned 40. I started celebrating a few days early, coincidentally in Vegas, but for work, not for partying. My parents were there, at a table at Sinatra’s, under 20-foot paintings of Frank. His Grammy was by the front door (the gold one, not Rosa), and we all had tickets to La Reve – which means the dream – which aligned with the introspection of a milestone like the big, obnoxious “four-oh.” Knowing how I hate a fuss but love a steak, the meal was 5-star but the gifts were Dollar Tree. There may have been a joke-book on how to survive your forties. My forties — all ten of them — were comin’ down the track like Casey Junior, and if you don’t understand that reference, then you’re under forty so count your blessings and keep reading. (Have I mentioned yet, I was turning 40?)

On the actual day-of, I drove myself up Coast Highway from where I lived in San Diego and got a room where I could barely see the sea, obscured by powerlines and train trestles, and by a clarity of sight I’d barely even known was missing. I bought my first pair of readers not long after. Menus. Microwave directions. Things I handed to people to read for me. All of this so typical it wouldn’t be worth the mention, but for the fact I hadn’t begun to have children yet and something was breaking. Mama could turn 80 with 10 children gathered ‘round, but 40 plus blurry was hard to hit when I felt like I’d hardly begun. This was a heart squeeze, which I downplayed to “they’re just readers.” I cleaned out Goodwill’s $1.99 motherlode and tucked spares everywhere. Car. Purse. Work. Bought “fancy” ones at the local Sprouts that came with their own microfibre cleaning pouch, arty designs, and ran me a cool $20 for higher-grade plastic. “They were all I needed.” My eyes were “fine.” Just….fiiiiine.

But my parents wouldn’t let it alone. “Make an appointment,” they said at every opportunity. “ You’re making it worse,” they corrected. “You’ll be surprised at the difference,” they encouraged. But I chorused, “I see fine! I just can’t do one little thing.” (Read.) It wasn’t until my eyes started tearing non-stop, leading to apologies during meetings (“I’m not crying…honest”) or dabbing my leaking face like a rarely-visited grampa, that I agreed it was time. Again I recited, this time to the doctor, “I just need something for reading.” For 20 minutes I read the letters on a wall, convinced I was acing this test. F P Z O D. Gimme a harder one doc. A sight for sore eyes. He asked, “Right or left? One or two?” and when he locked the results in place on the Ben Franklin contraption I’m surprised we still use in this millennium, he said with empathetic reveal, “Okay. That’s… for distance.”

But I don’t need distance. (What a hack!) It’s just the letters I can’t see. “Yes,” he said, “letters on the wall across the room.” Then he said it: progressives. I’m sorry, do I look like my father to you? I’m just a kid Doc. A wee babe. Check my chart. He literally handed me a box of tissues. I suppose this is where most girls start to cry. I wasn’t going to give in. At least not while he was looking. I took a tissue though, just in case.

Deflated, but hungry for clarity, I counted the seconds until pickup. Longest, blindest two weeks of my life. But when I finally donned my long awaited, highly coveted, literally rose-colored spectacles (a nice rose gold to offset the sudden lack of color in my hair), the first thing I saw was the smile leave my face.

The world was electrically vivid. Straight lines. Specks and spots and sparkles. Solid colors I faintly recalled from the 90s. And good Lord, how long has my face looked like THAT?! I was disturbed to realize I was capable of forgetting…all of this. I had come to think that what I’d been seeing for ages (that word again) was all the human eye was capable of seeing. Somewhere in my life, I had lost a gift – and I hadn’t even noticed.

God made the spiritual illustration as clear as everything else suddenly was just outside the optometrist’s office: What other vision had faded? What other valued gifts had deteriorated? Are there other (mal)functions I find “normal” or “fine” but are far from what was before — and far from what’s possible when given to God? Am I not even seeking clear sight, but just settling for spiritual “readers” to get by? Like the guideposts of parental advice I’d ignored, and watery eyes I’d excused, all leading to a physician revealing how little I could see, Lord, Great Physician, lead me into Divine (spiritual doctor’s) Appointments with You, and make the needed adjustments. Right or left? (Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.” – Proverbs. 4:27) One or two? (And I will give them one heart and one purpose: to worship me forever…” – Jeremiah 32:39 [NLT]) I don’t mind admitting my areas of blindness or deterioration, of flabbiness and laziness, my need for spiritual fitness. Why stop at vision? I want the works — a complete checkup — and I want to work at it. There are things to see yet. “There is more to be done in this city.” “There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb.”

So I got glasses, and they made me wonder – how long it’s been, when it happened, why I forgot.

So I asked the Lord for spiritual glasses, to make me wonder – at the work of His hands and the view from where He stands.

And I never want to lose sight again, of all that’s possible in God’s hands.

“Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” (ESV)