Preserved – Living above See Level

A few years ago, I had one of my most challenging experiences with my natural

vision. What started out as a normal day for me ended with me having a splitting

headache and blurred vision. I thought I might have my contact lenses in the wrong

eyes so I switched them. But my vision seemed to get worse so I switched them back.

Also, I did all that I could over the next three days to clean them…but there didn’t seem

to be a strong enough solution to remove what looked like a cloudy layer on the lenses.

I reluctantly made an appointment with the eye doctor dreading having to buy another

pair of contact lenses. I prayed for God to supernaturally heal my eyes on the way to

the doctor’s office but God obviously had a more important lesson for me.

When I went to the eye doctor, he was able to clean the lenses and remove most

of what had clouded them. He stated that part of my physical discomfort was the fact

that I was right eye dominant…and it was my right eye’s contact lenses that was the

most blurred. The weaker left eye was trying to overcompensate for the temporary

weakness of the right.

He further explained that his great “top-secret” solution that cleansed my

contact lens included baking soda. He carefully explained all that he did and

recommended that I do the same thing to clean my contact lenses in the future. It was

amazing how something as simple as baking soda seemed to be the solution to

everything!

Later that day, I did what he said and marveled at the quick improvement to my

eyesight. It was still a little fuzzy, but my headache was gone. I thought to myself, how

interesting that even though it was the weakest, my left eye was over compensating for

the temporary weakness of the stronger right eye.

I also thought how that fight between my eyes to give me clear vision was similar

to our battles with faith. We don’t have enough faith that God will do something and

we over compensate by taking matters into our own hands. We think we are doing

the right thing, but in the end we cause an imbalance of faith. We say we have limitless

faith….but our actions show that we actually have limited faith. Sometimes we also

make the mistake of putting our faith in the wrong people or things.

2 Corinthians 4:18 says, “While we do not look at the things which are seen but

at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary but the

things that are not seen are eternal.” Faith, like that dirty contact lens, is what we see

the world through. If our faith is blurred, cloudy, distorted or obscured, we make poor

decisions because we have poor sight. Like that damaged lens, we have to admit that

our faith was shaken and replace our faithless eyes with the faithful eyes of God.

Shewanda Riley is a Dallas, Texas based author of “Love Hangover: Moving From Pain to

Purpose After a Relationship Ends” and “Writing to the Beat of God’s Heart: A Book of

Prayers for Writers.” Email her at preservedbypurpose@gmail.com or follow her on

Twitter @shewanda.