Preaching with a purpose

A week ago I had another operation on my eye and can now see again in both eyes, albeit quite blurry in the one eye. It is a great relief.   In many ways the experience has been a good one, although not one I would have chosen.   It has made me realize how blessed I have been to have had good eye sight all my life.   It makes me appreciate my friend who has tunnel vision.   She gets the very best out of life despite the disability and never complains. It is the difficult circumstances in life that teach us the most.   We don’t like going through them but they are a blessing in disguise. The “pursuit of happiness” is not brought about by money, fame or fortune; the best lessons are the hard ones. This life is a training ground not a picnic.

There is only one way to truly appreciate another person’s sight problems and that is to have them yourself.   When you lose the sight in one eye, albeit temporarily, your brain works overtime to put things right.   You are not left with half your vision but more like a third as you lose all of the one side and the part in the middle where your eyes work together is messed up by the blind eye and confuses the total picture. My “good” eye is also affected by cataract.   As the days pass the brain does manage to make adjustments.   I guess that this means that when I have my new lens implanted new adjustments will have to be made. All of this I can happily tolerate in order to have my sight restored. It puts a whole new emphasis on the poets words, “look they last on all things lovely every hour.”   One more thing I have decided, the complication with my original operation was in no way the fault of the surgeon and I am more than happy for him to do the operation on my secon

Today I visited the consultant for a check up.   All is well and my eye is progressing.   One thing he did really helped me.   He took a lens and told me to hold it up to my eye.   What a wonderful moment, I could see.   It proved what I have been telling myself that my eye is in good working order but just has one important missing component, the lens. I still have to wait 4 to 6 weeks for the lens to be implanted, I think it’s because my eye is still too inflamed.   I have a range of drops to use throughout each day to aid the healing process. I can’t drive or play bowls at the moment but life is very full. It takes something like this to make one realize how important our sight is.   Also I realize what a healthy life I have had.   The day I had my second operation a little girl I know who has cystic fibrosis was having an op to remove excess mucous.   She had to stay in for several days.   I can hardly complain at my time of life if I am beginning to fall apart!! God is

Last Friday I had a cataract operation.   I was expecting to be going home with a new lens which would give me better eye-sight than I have had in the last few years.   I had had the local anaesthetic which was a little painful and was peacefully lying under the blue sheet which prevented me from seeing what was going on.   After a while there was a phone call made and then I was told that my natural lens had fallen into the back of my eye.   I had read that this was an unlikely possibility and that it could be rectified.   I was told that I would have another operation on the following Wednesday to put this right and put in the new lens.   My mother always brought me up not to make a fuss.   So I said to the consultant that I believed God has a purpose in everything, which I do believe.   I also told him he could not expect to get everything right every time.   I do not believe there was any negligence, it was just one of those rare things.   So I went home with one fairly good

This morning whilst shopping I saw Quakers in a silent vigil declaring on posters that what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki seventy years ago must never happen again.   Whilst applauding the sentiment I realize that this is a gesture that is likely to fall on deaf ears.   For the heart of man “ is desperately wicked.” We tend to remember Hitler but forget Pol Pot.   We deplore the African slave trade of the nineteenth century, but forget people are in slavery making our clothes. If we look full on at the world we see evil on every hand and in order to cope with this reality we put on blinkers and hide in denial. How often do we hear, “This must never happen again.   I wouldn’t want anyone to go through this?”   But until man turns back to God in repentance we will hear this phrase over and over again.

A couple of nights’ ago I watched a programme on T.V. about the terracotta army discovered some time ago in China.   Each soldier is amazing and individually crafted.   One man was measuring their ears to see how unique each one is, just as if they were portraits of different people, and I guess that is so.   They were buried with weapons which proved to be excellent and accurate.   The commentator said they were, “well ahead of their time.” Often when speaking of “primitive” peoples there is amazement at their technology.   We do not know how Stonehenge could possibly have been positioned as it is.   We marvel at the precision of the pyramids.   Why is it that we are amazed at these things?   If we read our Bibles we see that Adam and Eve were created perfect and this would have included their intellect.   They were far more clever than anyone on earth today and it was only after the fall when they rebelled against God that everything about them began gradually to decl