Many may not know this, but without contacts or glasses, I'm essentially blind. It's hard to describe just how poor my eyes are. I can throw out numbers like "-6.75" for my prescription strength or "20/1200", but what does that even mean? Essentially, it means that if you're 10 feet (3 meters) away (or even a little less) and ask me how many fingers you're holding up, I can't tell you. It means I can barely see well enough to put eyeliner on without my contacts, with the end of the eyeliner pencil touching the mirror. It means I can't read your averaged sized font in a book or on a computer screen if I'm more than about 5 inches/13 centimeters away.
And it means I don't go a moment without my contacts (or glasses). I prefer the contacts because they don't sit on my face, I have peripheral vision, I feel like I can just see normally, I can buy any pair of sunglasses... it just seems easier.
But it does mean that impromptu over-nighters are complicated if I haven't brought contact cases, contact solution, and glasses with me. This happened in Mozambique when a group of us took a day trip to "the island", and the day trip turned into an over-nigher. The biggest reason I almost said no to the over-night stay was because of my eyes. I have to take the contacts out. But if I take them out, I can't see. And if I don't have somewhere to put them and they dry out, going through waking hours without vision correction would be a burden to everyone else!
In that case, it resulted in 5 of us laughing hysterically as we tried to solve this problem. The obvious solution, according to my friends, was that they needed to make themselves cry, collect their tears, and create homemade saline solution for my contacts. Staring contests and onion cutting were involved, but precious few tears were produced. (Although we did laugh so hard that we practically cried!) In the end, I went with bottled water and a bottle cap.
Despite all of this, I generally forget that I'm essentially blind and I need to take care of that which allows me to see. This has led me to "over wearing" my contacts. It's easy for me to think, "I can see with them, so they're fine." But soft contacts collect bacteria, and since they cover your eye, they also reduce the amount of oxygen getting to your eye. This is why you're not supposed to sleep in them. Or wear them more than 16 hours a day. Or 12. 16 is too much, really. Having lived for a few months in a place where you save up water for the inevitable day that it stops running, it's also very difficult to throw away your daily contacts every day, like you're supposed to. Or every other day. Or every week. Or.... You get the idea. Because, hey, they seem fine. I can still see! But I was unable to perceive any problem. The reality was, my eyes were being oxygen deprived, they were irritated, and had I continued to wear yesterday's (or last week's) contacts, and wear them too long, it would have added damaged eyes to bad eyes.
Thankfully, my eyes are fine -- they are slightly abused, but recovering and looking good. The eye doctor banned me from contacts for at least 2 weeks -- he preferred three. My ban has been lifted, but he wants me to keep it to 10 hours a day. Basically, only at work. Or only starting at lunch time.
It all makes me think of spiritual sight, too. We get so used to "seeing" the truth with Jesus, that we forget that the only reason we can see at all is because He's corrected our vision -- and we continually need His influence in our lives to continue to see clearly. We can't even just rely on what we had yesterday or last week -- we need new, fresh, visual assistance every day: time in His Word, listening to Him, being with Him.
And how easy it is to lose vision and focus and perspective for our lives. Really, the main thing He's called me to do is represent His heart and His character wherever I go. An area I'm definitely still growing in. And how easy it is to lose sight of that, to lose sight of whatever "vision" we have, when circumstances or others' expectations or even our own expectations of ourselves cloud that vision. Regular visual check-ups are so important. Like a vision chart (which, btw, I can't even see) that tells us, "This is what your supposed to be able to see -- can you still see it?" This is what God has said and who He is and what His promises are and His plans for our lives -- can we still see it?
