Glasses

by Mary Hannah

Not too long ago, a friend posted a selfie of herself, glasses free. For her, this was a selfie she never dreamed she’d take. Her post ran along the lines of, “The picture I never thought I could snap. For a long time I thought I could never be beautiful without glasses.”

Huh, I thought. For me it was the exact opposite. 

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I’ve had glasses since I was eighteen months old, my parents having discovered very quickly that my eyesight was not as good as it could be. My right eye would turn off when it tired out, leaving me cocking my head funky in order to read.

The outlook was not good. It was an unfixable problem. I’d probably lose my eye. One of my very first memories is looking under the sink for bandaid style eyepatches, prescribed to force my right eye to have to work. Eye doctor offices became commonplace things for me. I can still tell you what my eye doctor’s waiting room looked like from when I was three.

By the time we moved to Washington, I’d already been wearing glasses for two and a half years. The regular spiel continued, but for me, it became a little more real what was going on. I knew most kids didn’t see specialists for their vision, or practiced focusing their eyes on specially designed computer software. I never felt abnormal, however. It was just who I was. “Yeah, my eyes don’t work well,” I could have told you. “Now, can you play Go Fish with me?”

One night, the elders from our church arrived after dinner and anointed me with oil and prayed over me. It’s only now that I realize that this was the point where my right eye was as bad as it had ever been. But it didn’t matter how bad it was going to be, because it never was. The next eye doctor appointment I can remember changed everything. The specialist peered into my eye and with a shocked expression told my mother that everything was fixed. I would still have to wear glasses, but I wouldn’t go blind. It was a miracle that no one could have made happen.

As I grew older, however, I began to feel self-conscious of those glasses. I thought I looked homely and dorky with those dark frames on my face. Most people didn’t have glasses. I felt out of place. Sometimes I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirror. The first opportunity I can get contacts, I told myself, I’m taking it. 

When I did finally get contacts, I was ecstatic. Now, I could be normal. But as I wore those clear plastic lenses, and gazed into the mirror, at my newly transformed self, I came to realize something was missing. My glasses. And then came an even more astounding fact. I actually liked and sort of missed my glasses.

These days my glasses are still a part of me, only this time willingly. I don’t care what others think about my framed face. And as I think about it, I’m glad I wear glasses. It is a living testimony every time I look in the mirror of how much God has blessed me in this life. He cared enough about a little girl, His child, that He miraculously allowed for my eyes to work, even after everyone said it was hopeless. He could have let me go blind in one eye, and yet He didn’t, because of His amazing love for me and His purpose for my life. And glasses for me are like the rainbow, a little sign that God cares about me, cherishes me, and has His Hand on my life.

P.S. Congratulations to Ellen for being so brave as to try something scarily new and for realizing that you are beautiful without the one thing you thought you couldn’t do without. God knows you are beautiful either way.