Light Up My Eyes

It's a good thing that I want to be a nurse and not an optometrist because I discovered today that I would make a lousy eye doctor. In one of my nursing classes today, we learned how to examine the eye. After the lecture and demonstration, we were given an opthalmascope and the opportunity to practice on one another.

My poor lab partner. "All I see is black!...How are you supposed to hold this thing anyway?...Am I hurting you?" I asked her. She sat there patiently while I flashed a light directly into her eye for ten minutes trying to get a glimpse of her retina. After switching sides and trying again for ten minutes, my eyes became so tired that I couldn't even keep one eye open to look through the opthalmascope. "This is hopeless." I gave in to the fact that I would never be a nurse for an eye doctor, and I apologized to my lab partner who was blinking profusely. After giving my eyes a rest, my teacher gave me some instruction and convinced me to try one more time. I reluctantly took the instrument and gave it one more shot, not expecting to see anything different.

I gasped and then shouted so that the whole class could probably hear, "I found it! I see it!" There it was, the optic disc! After a whole class period of failed attempts and pain (at the expense of my poor lab partner), I got a tiny glimpse of all the blood vessels at the back of the eye. I had always wondered what the eye doctor saw when he looked into my eye, and now I could see it for myself!

I think that I am probably a nerd for being so fascinated with the eye, but seeing those "invisible" structures today made me in awe of God. I remembered some of Jesus' words in Matthew 6:22.

"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light."

In my nursing lab today, I learned that just a little amount of light in the eye can illuminate so many amazing features that will leave you in amazement at God's touch of creativity. In the same way, I want my eyes to be filled with light so that I can see clearly and be left in awe of the Lord. This has become my prayer:

Light up my eyes, Lord. May my eyes be filled with your light, which is your truth, your presence, your goodness, your faithfulness, your praise. Help me to turn my eyes away from anything else that this world has to offer, and may I look right into your glorious light.

I may be a failure of an optometrist, but God has not given up on me. With eyes fixed on His light, we will all be left in amazement of who He is. And we will be able to see something more.

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