Passing

This Time is Passing

When I started my day yesterday I had the very best intentions of being joyous; truthfully I have that intention each and every morning when I roll my sinful body out of the bed. But, it seems that my fleshly existence takes hold more than I allow the Spirit to reign forth sometimes.

I knew when the day started that it would be a little crazy. My poor little flower Lily Grace is sick. She has the yuckiest virus and I needed to take her to the Doctors. So, we all readied ourselves super early to take the hubby to meet with the co-worker he would be driving in with. Sometimes only having one vehicle is a huge burden, but I remind myself to be so very thankful that we even have one reliable vehicle when there are so many without food or shelter.

We headed out the door to go to the Doctors, got the Rx she needed and I dropped them off at my girlfriends so I could then go to the eye Doctors myself.

This adventure is what prompted my writing today. I had a humbling experience during my time there.

Let me start with what took me for the eye exam ….

I’ve been suffering from debilitating migraines. As the years have passed by it seems they are becoming more frequent. I have suffered from headaches for as long as I can remember truthfully. I’ve had a CT scan to rule out any masses and had blood work drawn, and the conclusion is always that I am healthy. But, the headaches continue with frequency and I continue to suffer.

On Tuesday I suffered from such a terrible migraine I wasn’t able to function. I couldn’t see, couldn’t walk, and saw spots of light. My husband had to take the entire day off of work to care for the kids because I was incapacitated. It was then that he said I needed to go get my eyes checked. {Most of the pressure starts behind my eyes.} I then of course said I couldn’t because we didn’t have the money for the eye exam; which he in turn said, “Ashley, I’d rather figure out how to pay for the eye exam then to lose a day’s worth of work every time you get one,” at which I had to agree with him!

So, {fast-forward} to yesterday and I found myself sitting in the exam chair struggling to read any of the letters with clarity. As I slipped on the space goggles and tried to read the lines of letters I realized with great certainty that my eyes were not at the level our God made them. The Doctor then informed me he couldn’t believe I’ve even been walking around all this time. I suffer from astigmatism in both eyes as well as a lazy left eye.

He asked me how long I’ve had trouble reading and seeing clearly. I told him only the last two years or so have I noticed a huge change in my sight, but I then explained that at the age of 12 my mother had taken me to the eye Doctor and I had a Rx for glasses; which I conveniently lost because I didn’t like them.

Enter in the humbling moment ….. Had I worn the glasses as prescribed my eye would not today be lazy. You see, my poor right eye had been forced to do the work for so long that the left eye had almost completely stopped working. I explained to him that my sister suffers from a lazy eye and that she had to have patches as a child and we could always tell that her eye wasn’t working. Why was this not the same? He then explained, again as a humbling reminder, that I had a developed lazy eye due to not allowing my eyes to strengthen with the glasses.

The consensus, I would have to wear glasses probably for the rest of my life, all day every day. For reading, for walking, for driving … yes, EVERYTHING. What I thought would be a quick exam turned out to be a costly bill because of the strength of the Rx. 

Another humbling moment {Had I simply been wearing glasses as a child I would not be in this present predicament}. I would not have had these headaches for so long which have now turned into migraines. I would not periodically see light spots; I would not drive past every single road sign on the road because it was too blurry to see. I would not have suffered so immensely for years had I simply done as the Doctor had advised 17 years ago (shwew, 15 years ago, I’m getting old, tee hee).

To say I was discouraged and upset when I left the eye Doctors would be an understatement if I’ve ever heard one. I was crying, calling my husband choking on the tears that were falling from my rosy cheeks.

Praise God for my husband, my rock, my comforter. God worked right through Him.

“What a blessing to know what the problem is, now we can work towards fixing it.” WOW!

I had expected him to be irate, furious that I had to spend money that we truthfully, absolutely did not have. But, he was comforting, assuring me that God would provide faithfully.

It was then that I heard God speaking to me ever so clearly – these bodies are simply fading away. The flesh gives out on us, rots and deteriorates. We try and fix what we can to live as long as we can while here, learning all that He has for us, but in the end, our bodies give out on us because they are sinful. But, my hope lies in the future I will one day have with Him in heaven and I can take so much comfort from that thought.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Philippians 3:20-21

I will one day have a new body, a perfect body, one that sits in His glory at the foot of His throne. I gain peace from this and it helps me endure these small, lowly problems here to know that one day I will live in perfect harmony with Him.

Oh what a glorious day it will be….