When my husband and I got married, we had so much extended family that between our shower and wedding gifts, we lacked … well, nothing. Towers of gifts included bedding, artwork, photo albums, and lots of kitchen stuff. Pots and pans, small appliances, cutlery, dishes, mugs, and glasses.

In my previous blog post, I mentioned using my paycheck at Murphy’s Mart, a local department store, to put things I thought we’d need on layaway and pay them off. One item I recall was a set of chocolate brown, plastic cups so we’d have something to offer water or iced tea to visitors. Our wedding gifts included several sets of glasses, including floral squat ones as shown in the photo.

But those glasses aren’t the glasses I thought of for this post.

At an early age, I developed a bad poison ivy rash over 90% of my body. This caused some vision disturbances which led to a prescription for glasses in elementary school. I wore them as you’d expect a shy girl in the 1960s to do – not much at all. Through the rest of school, I dealt with the visual issues, but not until I was married and trying to work two jobs at once did I begin having serious problems.

After a few years, I began wearing glasses full-time. The frames for these glasses went from plastic to metal and back to plastic. The photo shows many frames available in the ‘70s. Today, I rely on my glasses more and more to see things near and far.

But those glasses aren’t the glasses I thought of for this post.

This morning, with the current ban on gatherings involving people outside our families, I decided to start a new Bible study as my trade-off for church. I’d heard of a company offering a series of Bible studies with videos for free plus a slight charge for the ebook study guides. I figured that would fit my needs well.

Since my word-of-the-year for 2020 is FOCUSED, the Bible study 20/20, by Christine Caine (of Women of Faith), jumped out at me. I paid for the ebook, installed their app on my tablet, and logged in to watch the first video portion. Besides Christine’s delightful Australian accent, the topic and accompanying Bible story brought joy as I realized what a perfect study I’d been led to.

As the title 20/20 suggests, it involves sight. Christine spoke of focusing (remember my word-of-the-year?) on the people right in front of us. She brought up the questions of who we see and who sees us. She included a statistic on the popularity of taking selfies to the tune of one million per day! And her point? How can we see others when we’re looking at ourselves so much?

She also spoke of how we would see if we looked through our regular glasses, a pair with scratched lenses, a pair without lenses, and a pair with the wrong prescription. I must admit to losing track of what she said we’d see or wouldn’t see because a memory of long ago came to mind.

And that’s the glasses I thought of for this post!

While I was a senior in high school, we experienced an extra heavy snowfall. To go to church one day, our dad cleared some of the snow, but much was still around the car doors. My brother opened the back door to get in, and I opened the front door. I reached out and grabbed the door frame between the two doors for balance to cross the snow by my door … just as my brother slammed his car door.

Let’s leave the rest of that part of the story for another time. Today’s memory came from what happened later (no church for us). After icing my hand, I went to my bedroom and grabbed a journal I’d started a couple days before. I’d never kept a diary, but being a writer, it was bound to happen that I’d fall in love with journaling sometime.

I remember being thankful the hand slammed in the door was my left hand, and I wrote right-handed. One of the first lines I wrote that day said something like this: “Once again, I don my ‘glasses.’” I’d started calling my journaling “glasses,” although I don’t recall why.

Years later, as I reread those journals, I saw the name for what it was – a young girl-turning-woman’s way of finding herself and discovering her God. I’d just become a Christian less than a year before, though I’d gone to church all my life. I’ve journaled for the past 40+ years, seeing myself grow and stagnate, become and change through the lens of those journaling “glasses.” I’ve also learned to see God and what I’ve been missing in His work for me.

Brandon Heath says it best in his song, “Give Me Your Eyes.” Listen to this link and find your “glasses” so you can see what you’ve been missing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5AkNqLuVgY

Did you wear glasses as a child? Do you remember a special set of glasses your family used for water or iced tea? Did you have a set for family and a set for company? Share your story of whichever glasses you feel led to write about. Blessings!