Freedom of Sight
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Can you read what's on that signpost”
If she had a penny for every time she was asked, she would be a very rich woman. But, it wasn’t always like this. In the earlier parts of her life, she could see clearly but, slowly, it kept getting worse. Her seat in the class kept moving forward slowly until she was sitting on the front row, right in front of the blackboard. Teachers thought she was very attentive, her classmates thought she was a smarty pant, but all she wanted to do was see. See clearly.
With each year that passed, the doctors kept prescribing higher lenses to “correct” her eyes but at the end of each year or two, they would prescribe something higher. She became a slave to the famous two-lensed invention (let’s call it glasses) so much so that she had to wear it everywhere except to sleep and bathe.
In secondary school, the bullies knew that no matter how strong, confident and proud she stood, her weak link was her eyes, and they only needed to steal or destroy her glasses to render her helpless. So, they did it a couple of times until a higher force took the power from the main bully, and then she was safe.
Eventually, She got tired of the endless cycle and decided to give it a break. She stopped visiting the doctors, she stopped changing her lenses only her frames whenever they wore out. She decided to trust God, she set dates, bargained, and hoped that it would happen at the time she had set. It didn’t.
She was broken. “Why can’t I see?”, “God I trusted you, I set a time, and you didn't come through” She started asking questions and God started to answer her in various ways, through various people, songs, and scriptures.
“Time is in My hands,(Psalm 31:15) a thousand years to you is like a single day to Me. (2 Peter 3:8)”
He showed her the authority she possesses and showed her that she already had access to these things when Christ rose from the dead. She only needed to receive by faith, declare by faith, and start praising and thanking God in advance. This gave her peace and she realized that she hadn’t been patient all along. So, she made up her mind to wait as long as it would take but with a new mindset of thanksgiving because she had learned,
“If you are ready to wait forever with God, forever won't be too long.”
One morning, she woke up and did the preliminaries before going to work. After work, she went back home and started making dinner like any other day. She decided to cook white rice and when she guessed that the water would have dried up, she raised the pot lid to check the water level and the steam from the pot rose to her face and made her glasses misty. This was not new to her so, she moved away from the pot and started fanning the front of her glasses as usual for the steam to clear, but it didn’t clear. Her vision was still blurry through the lens. She removed the glasses, same thing, blurry. She wore them again, blurry.
“No! I can’t be blind. I won’t be blind. Never!”
Her heart was beating fast, she was panicking and she didn’t know what to do. So, she tried to calm down, taking deep breaths.
“You can do this, deep breaths, calm, hmm……..” sigh
Now she was calm.
“What do I do now? Okay first, let me switch off the gas. I can’t add a burnt house to my problems.”
She felt around for the knob and switched off the cooker. Then she felt her way to the room. She didn't want to call anyone and raise an alarm and she didn’t know what to do. So, she decided to do the only thing that came to her mind, sleep.
Tears started flooding her eyes and her thoughts did not allow her to sleep.
“Why is this happening to me?”
“God, this was not the plan. this was not the plan, No, this wasn't it.”
The waterworks continued until her pillow was soaked but sometime in the midst of it all, she felt peace and her words started to change.
“Thank you, Lord, because this will turn around in my favor.” She kept repeating this until she finally fell asleep.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
It was 5 am, Ugh another 9–5 workday. She stretched to turn off her alarm then she hopped off the bed and went to the bathroom to freshen up for the day. When she was done, she went to the kitchen to make something for breakfast before work. That was when she saw the soggy pot of rice on the cooker.
“How did I leave this rice and go to sleep? I must have been really tired.”
“What did I do yesterday?”
She thought for a moment, and then it clicked.
“Wait. What?”
She felt her face for her glasses. She wasn’t wearing them. She ran to the room and glanced around, her glasses were on her side table.
“It can’t be. Or can it? I never got contacts.”
She went to the mirror in the bathroom. No glasses but she could see clearly. She could see her face, her beautiful hair, and her features without the two-lensed invention on her face. Everything looked sharper than when she was wearing glasses.
She couldn't even try to stop them. Tears started to run down her face as she dropped to her knees.
“You’re too faithful God. You’re too faithful to fail.”
In between deep, hearty sobs, she praised God. She lost track of time as she basked in His presence and she didn't care about the fact that she was running late to work. None of it mattered at that moment and nothing was more important. Her Seventeen-year slavery was over and She was finally free.
