Getting Used To the Dark

I know the picture today looks like I let one of my grandbabies paint on it! :) But, no...I did that myself to try and give you a graphic of my vision. The picture is not of any particular place. It was taken several months ago as my husband drove down the road. The spots and circles and squiggles on the picture represent how this scene looks when I look at it. (I only used the color white so they would show up) Let me explain:

One day almost twenty years ago my left eye was itching as I read to our family from the Bible during daily devotions. I stopped for a moment to rub my eye while still still looking at the printed page with my open right eye. I was stunned by what I saw. A round black blob appeared on the page. When I moved my eye, the black spot moved with it. It scared me. And well it should have. I didn't know at that minute but would find out when I went to the doctor that there was bleeding in the back of my eye. On the retina. Dangerously close to the macula. They determined that it was caused by something called Histoplasmosis. I was immediately sent to a very good eye specialist who did laser surgery to stop the bleeding. He told me that I would always have a scar where the surgery was performed and because of that would be missing a part of my vision in my right eye. (This is represented by the solid white spot on the picture) Then he said..."But you will get used to it over time." And he was right....I did.

From time to time I would have little black spots or little lines in my vision but nothing major. Then several months ago on a Sunday when we had stayed and had lunch and afternoon services at church I noticed something strange in my vision on my way home. It looked like a "bubble" in the far left field of vision of my left eye. It was almost like having a raindrop on my glasses or a window pane except that I could not wipe it off. When I tried to look away from it, the "bubble" followed! (White oval with dots in it at far left represents this in the picture) On the next day I visited my eye doctor. He did a lot of looking and probing on my eye and then told me the news. He said that "because of my AGE" the gel in my eyeball was drying up and pulling away from the retina. That in itself is not particularly a bad thing because the eye will then fill in the gap with fluids, but the problem comes when the gel is in the process of "pulling away". There is a risk of getting a small tear in the retina or even getting a detached retina. So he told me to carefully watch for any more changes in my vision for the next six weeks. He did say that the "bubble" would never go away. And then he said...."But you will get used to it over time." And he was right......I did.

In a couple of months I woke up one morning to another "bubble" in my eye but this time it was in my right eye. Just about the same place as the one in the left eye....on the far outer side of my vision. (Represented by the white oval with dots on far right of picture) This time since I knew what was going on I just called and talked with one of my eye doctor's assistants. She advised me to just keep a watch on my vision and to call if I ever got any blurred vision. For a couple of weeks all was well. Then one morning I noticed the right eye was blurry. Not so blurry I could not see but enough to really get on my nerves! So I went back to see the doctor. Again he looked and probed and came to the conclusion that the same thing was happening. I was getting old and my eyes were drying up! :) He said that in addition to the new "bubble" in my right eye that he also saw a lot of "stringy, hairy" stuff floating around in the front of my eye. (Represented by the little white lines on mid right of picture) And then he said...."But you will get used to it over time." I'm sure he's right again, but so far I'm not totally used to it just yet.

Yesterday afternoon I listened to a radio preacher talking about our American history and how we have gone so far away from the Christian roots of our Founding Fathers! Gradually, little by little, we have turned away from God and ...sad to say....we have "gotten used to it"! It made me remember a song that I haven't heard in many, many years. The McKamey's sang it and it was called "Getting Used to the Dark". Here are some of the words:

Christian lives are wrecked by sin....

and we blame it on the world we're in.

We say there's nothing we can do.

Instead of being a shining light,

we're just doing right in our own eyes.

As Christians we're not doing our part,

we're just getting used to the dark.

Sin is all around us, but we don't think....

this world's as bad as it seems.

We just close our eyes to what's going on.

We're not burdened for the sinner man...

won't give our brother a helping hand.

It's time we show the world a little spark,

instead of getting used to the dark.

I think that being able to "get used to" the blank spots, spots, and bubbles in my vision will be a good thing for me. On the other hand, I think that "getting used to" sin is never a good thing for any of us!

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:" I Peter 5: 7

I pray God will open my eyes to sin in my own life. And then I pray that He will open my eyes to ways that I can help to right the wrongs of our world today.

How's your vision today?

Marilyn