Isaiah 9:2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.

According to my optometrist I have been walking in darkness, getting deeper and deeper as I age. Although I know that Isaiah was not writing about cataracts when he wrote these powerful lines, but they jumped out at me in this season of light.

As I sat in a hospital waiting area after my first surgery, I shut first the original, then the improved eye. To my amazement, the lights on the ceiling turned from white to yellow before my very eye. So the doctors were right when they said I needed the surgery. Susan was right when she told me that my Sunday shirt really was white - not yellow. I was wrong in my perceptions of reality. I think I have been taught a couple of lessons – gratitude towards medical competence and that I don’t see nearly as well as I believe I do.

A couple of prayerful verses from the old Clara Scott hymn won’t leave my head:

Open my eyes that I may see / glimpses of truth Thou hast for me. / Place in my hands the wonderful key t? hat shall unclasp and set me free.

Open my mind that I may read / more of Thy love in word and deed. / What shall I fear while yet Thou dost lead? / Only for light from Thee I plead.

Silently now I wait for Thee, / ready my God thy will to see. Open my eyes, illumine me, / Spirit divine!

-Ed Colquhoun