I remember the first time I had to wear glasses. I was six at the time when they placed those ugly, heavy, thick glasses on my tiny face. Eye exercises, patches, countless doctor visits, and even corrective eye surgery for cross eye was part of my childhood. Since the age of six, I have worn glasses or contacts.

The last few years I began to notice my eyesight deteriorating. It seemed my optometrist could not get my prescription right! So on my last visit to the optometrist, she told me that even glasses could not help me anymore. You need cataract surgery. What? Did I hear her correctly? I am 58 years old and always assumed that was the type of surgery for someone in their 70’s. My vision desperately needed to be corrected, so off I went to hunt for a gifted eye surgeon.

I checked around for the best surgeon that I could afford to repair my vision. Through recommendation, I found a highly skilled and gifted surgeon. When it came to my eyes, I only wanted the best that I could afford. He had studied for years and had won awards and was highly recommended by many. 

While in the doctor’s office, after my first surgery on the right eye, a lady walked in and was looking around with amazement. She said she could not believe how much she could see and could not wait until her second eye was operated on. She said she could not stop thanking God. I knew exactly how she felt; I too could not wait until the left eye was operated on, and I too was already thanking God for this new pristine, clear vision in my right eye. 

The recovery process for my left eye, after surgery, took a little longer as repairs were also done on a torn retina. For a week or so after the surgery on my left eye, there was a dark cloud over the eye. I waited in anticipation, wondering how well I would be able to see. It took a couple of weeks to completely clear up. But when it did, wow! No need for glasses or contacts! Everything was so new to me and clear. The colors were brighter and more vibrant! How amazing is that! I saw the ocean recently in a way that I had never seen it before. It was like seeing everything through brand new eyes.

There are no words to explain my emotions, from the excitement of seeing things so clearly and without the aid of glasses. The little things such as seeing the alarm clock without having to put glasses on is so priceless to me. Repairing my vision was life changing.

Is repairing your vision life changing? You bet! You cannot put a price on perfect vision. However, is that the vision that we need to get us through the tough times? While I feel as though I have entered into a new world with my new vision, it is not the vision that will get me through the tough times. There is a vision that only the greatest surgeon can perform that is life changing. That lesson was brought home to me recently, only days after my eye surgery.

Trust and Hope in God

On the way to work one morning, I saw the police and crime scene tape at our neighborhood dumpster. I stopped to ask the neighbor lady what had happened. She said her next door neighbor committed suicide at the dumpster. He left a note on their door which read, he was going to the dumpster to shoot himself and that they would find his body there. He went on to write in the not, that he was so sorry. She went on to tell me that this man was there for her and her husband when her husband had cancer treatments. She said she even took this gentleman to have cataract surgery, and he was so excited that he could see so well. He was ecstatic with his new found vision, she went on to say!

Apparently, this gentleman’s new vision did not fix the real problem. It cleared up his physical vision but not his heart. If he had a gifted surgeon working on his heart, he would still be alive today.

When I got to work that morning after hearing the sad news of this 63 year old man ending his life, I just happened to pull up Steve Myers’s recent BT Daily “Wait.” He quoted this scripture in Psalm 27:14, "Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart." Mr. Myers went on to explain the verse. “The verse actually tells us there how to wait. When you read what that word wait means, it is not just to hold on, but it means to trust and to hope and to eagerly expect that God will strengthen you.” I wished that man who committed suicide had seen that BT Daily by Steve Myers. Perhaps he would still be here today. It certainly encouraged me.

God desires for us to have perfect “spiritual vision”: hope. He wants you to have true vision that will give you hope of the future. Physical healing is similar to spiritual healing. My eyes were improved by a gifted physical doctor, but it is God who is the gifted surgeon for our heart. He is our spiritual healer.

Sadly, the gentleman who committed suicide only saw through a physical vision, which was pretty dim. The cataract surgery did not correct what was going on in his heart. Without perfect vision spiritually, we will become discouraged, want to give up; we will fail. 

While we all may not need cataract surgery to see, we all have to undergo cataract surgery of the heart to bring us closer to God. The gentleman who committed suicide will someday have that awesome opportunity to see clearly from the heart. Not only will his eyes be healed, but so will his heart.

You, too, need a gifted surgeon that knows you, cares about you, and will heal you. He will give you perfect vision of the heart. Perfect vision that keeps us going when there doesn’t appear to be any other reason to keep pushing forward toward the goal!

My awesome “pearl vision” was done by a gifted surgeon, but I know where the greatest surgery of all is taking place in me and that is in my heart. Healing after a surgery takes times. My left eye took time to heal after the surgery, but with each day it became clearer and crisper to see. That is how it is with spiritual healing. It is a slow process of maturing, learning, and trusting God more every day.

Sometimes you may just have to wait, as Psalms 27:4 states, while the gifted heart surgeon, God, does His marvelous work in you, for when He is done with our hearts, we too will be as joyous and thankful as the lady and I were over our physical eyesight surgery. Ask God for perfect spiritual vision, because He is your gifted surgeon who comes with high recommendations. His success rate is 100%.