If you wear any type of corrective lens, you know the difficulties and irritations that come with them. Things like always cleaning your glasses because they are fogged, oily, and/or fingerprinted. Contacts also need attention…cleaning…replacing…plus, you have to periodically stick them onto your eyeball and later peel them off. Not to mention that they sometimes get dislodged or actually become an irritant in the wind, dust, or some air conditioning! Yet, in spite of the shortcomings, you become dependent upon these vision aids because you can’t see without them, or at least, not clearly. I hate the fact that when I first wake up and look at the clock, I can’t read it! So, first things first, I put on my glasses. But shaving is much more easily accomplished wearing my contacts, because I can see all of my face in the mirror – as frightening a prospect as that is…just ask the people who know me!
My wife’s parents had graduated to wearing glasses by the time I first met them. I had not attained such a lofty status at that point. (Well, I had, but my eyes were young and flexible enough that they could compensate without external assistance.)
Years after I married into their family, Clarence retired from preaching. A couple of years before calling it quits – after 50 years of preaching – he suddenly developed a vision problem. I can relate. When I was finally forced into bifocal lenses, it literally happened within an afternoon. I was hand-writing a letter and laid it down. When I picked it up an hour later, I could barely read what I had written! The next day was better, but my sharp eyesight never fully returned.
Clarence felt that being a pastor required extensive reading, so his ability to see clearly was critical. Not only did he have to study and prepare sermons, but he also needed to read his notes at a glance while delivering them from the pulpit! On this day, all was well…until he started to preach. He glanced at his notes and realized he couldn’t read them! With 47+ years of experience, he hesitated only momentarily, offered a quick, silent prayer, and relied on his memory to get through the sermon. Success! No one realized his dilemma!
After church and lunch, while watching a televised football game, Clarence decided he could actually see better without his glasses! As he was telling Nita about it, she remarked that she was also having some difficulty seeing because her eyes were tired. After a bit, she decided to clean her glasses to see if that would help. While cleaning them, she noticed a problem with a lens – it looked like a crack or scratch. Then she realized it was the line for bifocals. She didn’t wear bifocals! They exchanged their similarly-styled glasses and all the world was once again in sharp focus…
There is a moral here…As you grow older and begin to physically resemble your spouse, don’t buy glasses frames that are similar, no matter how much you like the way they look on them!
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