Clarity

I have been wearing corrective lens since the eye exam at Chatham Junior High School in Savannah. Prior to that moment of being found out, I knew I was not seeing very well, but no one else had figured it out. So, glasses became a way of life until I started wearing contacts just before I reached age forty. Those who wear contacts know they can be a little tricky at times. The lenses can become dry and scratchy resulting in less than the perfect vision they are supposed to provide.

As I was leading worship this morning at Rocky Ford, I was wrestling with dry contacts that were giving blurred vision at best. A good squirt of saline solution would have helped, but it is not exactly something found in most pulpits. Fortunately, the hymns were familiar enough I did not need to depend on the blurred printed page. As I prepared the congregation for the pastoral prayer, I opened my Bible on the pulpit so that it would be ready for reading after the prayer. Then, as folks do, I closed my eyes and prayed. Sunday morning pastoral prayers are not as easy as they look. My kids often said they were too long. Most of the time they are too predictable.

Anyway, the order of worship said, "Pray," so I prayed. When I finished with the traditional "Amen" and opened my eyes, I was looking down at the open Bible on the pulpit. My vision was perfectly clear. The words seemed to be in bold large print. It was as if I had not been having any trouble seeing. My first thought at that moment was: "Prayer changes the way you see things." I wonder where that came from.