Better Vision

One of the unfortunate side-effects of having more birthdays is that parts of you stop working as efficiently as they used to!  I have regular check-ups at the eye clinic because of a cataract that is forming in one of my eyes.  This impairs my vision somewhat in that things in the distance become very unclear.  Last week I went for a regular eye test at the optician’s and this week I had to go and collect my new glasses.  It was amazing!  What a difference!   When the assistant asked if I could read the card, I did so without any problem and then in the distance, I could actually read the small print on a poster on the wall.  I was a bit like a kid at Christmas!  All the way up the street on my way back to the bus stop I was deliberately looking in shop windows for notices to read – just because I could – read them I mean!  I don’t know what any passers-by might have thought of this woman with a wide grin on her face looking in all the shop windows.

The following day I went to see my sister – we usually spend a couple of hours a week with a coffee, catching up on family etc.  The bus came around the corner about 100 yards away and I was thrilled to actually be able to read the destination and the number as it turned the corner and didn’t have to wait until it got to within about 5 yards of me.  Now I don’t need to look puzzlingly at an approaching bus and wonder if it is the one I want or not.

 



The thing I realised is that even though my vision was a little impaired and I couldn’t make out some things until they were really quite close, it’s something I got used to and sort of worked within that limitation without much fuss.  I stopped trying to read the news headlines as they went along the bottom of the TV screen.  I just listened to whatever the newsreader said.  In a way I just got used to my limitation in this matter and accepted it almost as inevitable.  This week I was reminded that things that aren’t 100% right can be changed.  Someone once said ‘Nothing that is wrong need be permanent’.  But in order to better my situation I had to go the optician and have my eyes tested and a new prescription given.  Eventually when the time is right, the cataract will be removed and my sight greatly improved.  I may moan about things not being right when maybe I should be thinking of how I can go about changing things and making them better instead of just putting up with things as they are.  With this in mind, yesterday I went into the back garden and mended a bit of fence that was broken.  There that’s better already!

 

Of course the world will take a bit longer to change; after all I’m not wonder woman!  But seriously sometimes we look with a bit of desperation at all that seems to be wrong and resign ourselves to the fact that it’s just the way things are.  But one step at a time, where we are, in our own back yard as it were, we can maybe do something to change some little thing.  After all the ocean is made up of countless drops of water, as they say.  In the Lord’s Prayer we pray ‘Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven’ and as a Christian who believes that this is what God wants then maybe I should be changing things, one bit at a time just where I am so that heaven is apparent just here.  Each of us making a difference right where we are - now there's a vision!