The Eye Doctor

Today I went to the eye doctor.

It's not my first experience. I have been going since I was in sixth grade. The first time I went to the eye doctor I almost passed out from the stress. They don't call it an eye EXAM for no reason. It's a stinkin test...and you pay for it! So the first time I went, I SOO didnt want my eyes to be bad. I was so nervous when the lady asked me to read the letters. I didnt want to be wrong. I didnt want to disappoint her.

...But I was wrong. I had to get glasses. That meant I had to keep going to the eye doctor and take this "exam" every year. i thought I was going to get uclers.

So every time I went to the eye doctor a wave of nervousness came over me. I hated hearing that my eyes got worse. I hated putting my eye up to a machine and the lady saying, "don't blink" knowing you were about to get a puff of air in your eye. You see the PURPOSE of blinking is to keep stuff like that out. God designed our eyes so that we would blink in those situations. So basically she is asking you to go against your natural design...its just not right.

But I dont have glacoma...so that is a positive.

Another point of stress is the peripheral vision test. You have to stare at this black square and hit a button every time you see a flicker on the machine. I get so scared that I am going to miss a flicker if I blink and they will think I can see out of my peripheries, so I sit there keeping my eye's plastered open, so they dry out, get blurry and then I get worried that I can't distinguish the blurry from the flicker. I am pretty sure I must have failed this before, but they probably have just not wanted to brake the news to me...

One visit I asked the doctor, "so you know how perfect eyes are 20/20, what are my eyes?" He looked at me and said, "Sara, our machines only measure up to 20/800, meaning that what normal people can read at 800 ft away, you would have to stand 20 ft away...well your eyes are worse than that. We cant really measure where you are at...you are off the charts.

And while being "off the charts" is all well and good when you are talking about IQ, its really not a claim to fame at the eye doctor.

So after that visit i decided I didnt need to worry about reading the letters correctly off the chart.

But for some reason, even though I was basically blind the nurse lady still made me take off my glasses and try to read the chart. She would put one row up on the screen and ask me to say it. I would kindly tell her, "I can't even see letters". Then she would put the biggest thing they had and ask me to read it. In my mind I am thinking "remember now I am trying to basically reading a sign that is 800 feet a way...why is she making me do this!" I am blind! I admit it! Please just dont make me read these letters! So anything she put up there I would tell her, "i am sorry, I cant read that."

...her response..."REALLY?!?" I thought to myself, hey I am putting food on your table with these eyes...I would be a little kinder to them!

But now they don't make me do this anymore. Heck, they don't even let me walk by myself without my glasses anymore. Which is a good thing, because after the nurse led me out of the room today, I almost sat on a man's lap because I couldn't tell that there was someone sitting there until I got right up close to him...whoa it was almost bad!

The one glimer of hope in all of this is my pupils. For some reason, God has giving me supernatural amazing pupils. Some people are star athletes, some people are world-renown cooks, I on the other hand have no-need-to-be-dialated-pupils. According to my doctor, my pupils are so big that he can easily see into my eyes. A couple years ago, he told me I had large pupils so instead of dialating every two years on me, he would do every 3 years. This year as he is looking into my eyes (in a completely unromantic sort of way) he exclaims, "Man your pupils are amazing! I can see so well! I might never need to dialate you again!" so right then I decided that the next time I am sitting in a circle and someone asks the question, "what is on interesting fact about you" I am going to tell them, "i have extremely large pupils." That should be a crowd pleaser!

So aside from the puff of air, the stressful test, and the periphery test that makes me want to pluck my eyeballs out...I learned that I have a unique pupil gift...and that is enough peace of mind to keep me going back to the eye doctor!

God Provides on Highway 45...

So last weekend…(yes I realize this is an outdated post, but my life has been crazy busy since then) I was driving back to Dallas when I hit a really LARGE pot hole! It was horrible! I was talking to my parents on the phone and they heard the noise! Apparently, according to my very wise father, all this rain has been tearing up our roads…another reason we should boycott all the rain we are getting this summer.

So nothing noticeably happened that effected my car's driving performance, but I decided to pull off the road just in case to check it out.

Basically, I started praying right away that nothing was wrong with my tire.

There were two major reasons I did not want my tire to be flat.

First of all…I can barely bench press a loaf of bread let alone get those tire screw thingys off when you have to remove the flat (yep…that IS the technical name for them!)

You see I do technically "know" how to change a tire. My daddy gave me a lesson when I turned 16 so I wouldn’t be one of those helpless little girls on the side of the highway, but unfortunately education cannot remedy the weak muscles of my little body. So alas, I am one of those helpless girls on the side of the highway…(this is why God's provision is so amazing!)

Second, I needed to get home in a timely manner because I was house sitting a person's house that night and it was already late. I needed my tire to be okay.

Alas, when I stopped in a very shady Texaco in who knows where I was, my tire was leaking air. You know it’s a bad sign when you hear a hissing of air leaking out.

The hissing sound was definitely mocking me…probably because it knew there was no way I was going to change that tire.

My first plan of action was to try "fix a flat". This is a lovely can of air that seals holes in your tire. The only problem was that the pot hole had dented the rim of my tire so I was unsure if fix a flat was going to work. But I was so desperate not to have to change my tire I wanted to be extra hopeful.

So I filled up Mr. Hissing Leak and drove about 10 miles down the road. I decided to get off in Corsicana because I knew I would have more options. For those 10 miles I was just praying that God would miraculously hold my tire together for the remainder of my way home.

So I get off the road and turn into a gas station that has a wendy's. If I am going to have to change a tire, I am going to need a frosty to do it! Anyways, just as I turn in I see this guy walking his dog. He is none other than a guy who grew up with me at my church back in carrollton. Not only is he one of the nicest guys I know…he is also an eagle scout. Those boys live for these moments of doing things like changing a tire. I could not believe it! God had brought me a tire changer!! I hopped out of my car and told him, "boy am I glad to see you!" I told him about the tire and sure enough… fix a flat had NOT done its job… it was still hissing…

This time not mocking me, because I had an EAGLE SCOUT in my midst! My friend Colby, just happened to be on his way back to Houston and he was stopping to let his dog out. Praise God that he led both of us to the same exact gas station at the same exact time! The only way that could ever happen is with God being in charge! I just marvel at how completely sovereign God is!! WOW!!

So maybe God didn't miraculously fix my tire with fix a flat, but he miraculously provided me a way home.

God answers prayers…not always exactly what we ask for, but in a way that is INCREDIBLY more amazing than I could have ever imagined.

God provided on highway 45! (it almost rhymes!)