Eyes Wide Open

A few months ago I started having some trouble with my eyes due to a lack of oxygen getting to where it needed to go. The condition led to bleeding in my eyes that became quite severe. So I had an operation in both eyes to help repair the damage and prevent the issue from happening again. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of the procedure I had done is that it can cause the rapid development of cataracts.

A cataract is a milky, cloudy effect that makes vision difficult because it's like looking through a fog or cloud to see. I kept trying to clean my glasses only to realize there was nothing on my glasses. The problem was in my eye.

Earlier this week I had surgery to remove the cataract. The surgeon drained the problem in the eye and implanted a new lens in my eye. Now when I look at somethng, I'm looking through a new clear lens.

The surgery itself took less than 10 minutes.

Don't you wish you could clear up the cloudy, dirty lens we view the world through and exchange it for a new lens in the same little amount of time?

See I'm guilty of trying to view people- their intentions and motives, their manners and personalities, their position and value- through my jaded, cynical, tired, old lens. I've let scar tissue build up from old wounds, old battles, old hurts and old trials and circumstances.

So my view is always cloudy, always skeptical, always impaired so to speak.

I've developed spiritual cataracts.

I think we let our unresolved emotions, hurts and pain, and life experiences build up in our eyes like cataracts and we need God to give us a new lens, a new perspective to view the world.

That's been one of my prayers for this year. God let me see people as you see them. Help me value every single person and life like you do. God let me look through your lens at everyone. Exchanging judgement for grace, dropping conditional love and acceptance for unconditional love and whole-heartedness.

Help me celebrate the goodness and individuality in people, and make me blind to that which divides and separates.

A new lens to look through.

I think that's something we all could use.