So I sit there, shifting my eyes from side to side, up and down. Wouldn't you know it, there's a new floater in my right eye. A totally obnoxious one. I also notice wavy folds in my vision, and these light streaks moving up around the right edge of the same eye. It takes all the fun out of harping.
I wait a day to see what will happen. Totally obnoxious floater is still there, although the light-flashing thing really only bothers me in the dark. Hmmm.
The next day the view from my right eye is the same. I call a local optometrist and they give me the next available appointment, in two days.
I show up bright and early for the first appointment on that day. I tell them my problem. They dilate the bothersome eye and the optometrist carefully and thoroughly examines my retina. You know, the kind of examination that requires a very bright light pointed directly into your eye as you look at his left shoulder, and the top of his head, and the clock on the wall to the right...
"It looks fine," he finally says. "I can't find any little tears or anything in your retina."
He continues shining the painfully bright light in my fully dilated eyeball.
"Oh, whoa!" he says with some excitement. "I found the floater and yep, it looks just like you described it!"
"See why it's bugging me so much?" I reply. I love it when my complaints are vindicated by someone with a medical degree. Trust me, that doesn't always happen.
"Uh oh...and yep, there is some vitreous detachment there. That's what's triggering the light flashes and the wavy threads," he says very matter-of-factly.
"So what causes it?" I ask. This is really a trick question because I have already done my research on the internet. Still, I brace myself for the answer.
"It's a normal part of aging," he says, and, to his credit, he looks a bit apologetic.
"Will it heal?" I ask.
"No...these things don't heal," he says regretfully.
Is it just me, or are the answers to life's questions mostly turning out to be about growing old these days? Good thing I already had an idea of what was coming. I square my shoulders. I place my darkest sunglasses over my unequally light sensitive eyes and breathe what has recently become my most frequent prayer as I drive home.
God, please use this to consume more of my dross and to refine my gold.
On days when the list of troubles seems to be outrunning the list of blessings, I return like a thirsty woman to these soul-sustaining words:
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.*
Now a vitreous detachment and obnoxious floater are certainly not the worst things I've encountered in what (certain people keep reminding me) has been a loooong life. Even in this aging body of mine the eye seems to be improving. Or else I am just adapting to the new view from my right eye. Either way, I am pleased that this recent event sent my thoughts to the bigger picture.
My time on this beautiful blue and green planet has a God-directed limit. As David wrote:
Show me, O Lord, my life's end
and the number of my days;
Let me know how fleeting is my life.
You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before You.
Each man's life is but a breath.
Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro;
he bustles about, but only in vain;
he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.
But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in You.+
I'm with David on this one. My hope is in God, too. I want to live each day that He gives me as fully as I can, honoring Him in the small, seemingly repetitive and unimportant duties as well as in the opportunities for grand and wonderful things. I want to do this right up until the time He has predetermined for my final Home-going.
But in the meantime, all the things I'd prefer to avoid become tools in God's loving hands. He redeems the everyday, mundane kind of troubles just as readily as the really big, life-threatening, life-changing kinds. He uses them to make us better reflections of Jesus.
So I am learning to lift my eyes heavenward and say the prayer a bit quicker with each new trouble, be it large or small. Somehow it helps to know that these very things are designed to serve a greater purpose in my life.
I love this old hymn more and more as I get, well, older and older.
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said
to you, who for refuge to Jesus have fled.
"Fear not, I am with thee - O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
upheld by My gracious omnipotent hand.
"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
the rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
for I will be with thee thy troubles to bless,
and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
my grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
the flame shall not hurt thee-I only design
thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.
"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never - no, never - no, never forsake!"
Quite recently I discovered an additional verse that has been excluded in most hymn books. I am quite sure the outdated words would have set me giggling in church as a child, embarrassing my poor mother, and resulting in a surreptitious pinch to settle me down.
But it is a shame, really, because its intent and meaning are quite relevant to the very thing I am trying to express. Here it is for your enjoyment. You may laugh at will without incurring bodily harm. Note that I have provided a few helpful definitions.
"Even down to old age all my people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
and when hoary (white with age) hairs shall their temples adorn,
like lambs they shall still in my bosom (protective place/chest) be borne.
Lord, allow me the privilege of proving your gracious love
through everything life brings me
as my hairs continue to turn white, one by one.
Amen
How Firm A Foundation - Attributed to John Keith (1787)
*1 Peter 1:6-8
+Psalm 39:4-7
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