open your eyes | betsybeadhead

Let’s look at Hagar in the Old Testament. Her son was smacked talking Sarah. In order to have peace, Abraham kicked her out. To throw her out at that time meant certain death.

They were nomadic people camping in the desert. There wasn’t anywhere else she could go. She went out by herself with her son and all she could see was desert. She knew they were done for.

She started crying out to God. He heard her and he opened her eyes. There was a well nearby that she not noticed. It’s not that God had suddenly made the well appear. Rather he opened her eyes so that she could see what was already there. What she needed to survive was right there next to her.

Are our lives like that as well? How many times do we think that we are lost? How many times do we think there is no hope? If we cry out to God, God can open our eyes and show us that what we need is right next to us.

Our eyes are then open to new opportunities and new possibilities. But in order for them to be open we have to hit rock bottom and ask for help. It is kind of like being an alcoholic. Before you’re able to get real help you have to hit the bottom.

Hagar had certainly hit the bottom. She called out to the only one that she knew could help her, and her eyes were opened. That’s the order of things. It isn’t that we see it first. It’s that we feel helpless and hopeless. Then we call out to God. Then our eyes are opened, and only then can we see our way out.

Genesis 21:9-20
9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne unto Abraham, mocking. 10 Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this handmaid and her son. For the son of this handmaid shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. 11 And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight on account of his son. 12 And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy handmaid. In all that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice. For in Isaac shall thy seed be called. 13 And also of the son of the handmaid will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. 14 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and gave her the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. 15 And the water in the bottle was spent, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. 16 And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot. For she said, Let me not look upon the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the lad. And the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not. For God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. 18 Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thy hand. For I will make him a great nation. 19 And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. 20 And God was with the lad, and he grew. And he dwelt in the wilderness, and became, as he grew up, an archer. (ASV)

I needed glasses at an early age, but I didn’t know it. Nobody knew it. I’d learned to adapt to my handicap. Imagine how much fuller my life would have been if people could have seen the signs and known to get me help.

In the meantime, I sat at the front of the class so I could see the board, and I learned to recognize people by how they walked, rather than how their face looked.

I wonder how many other things I’m missing out on. I wonder what else I am faking at and I don’t even know it. I wonder how many of us are like that, adapting, creating work-arounds, when there is a simple way through it. We think that our disability is normal, because we don’t know it is a disability, or we think that we just have to suffer with it because nobody has told us any differently. We either think we are normal and we aren’t, or we think we are unusual, and we aren’t.

I’m one of those people that needs someone to point out the obvious sometimes. Sometimes, something is so simple I don’t think of it. My head is in the clouds. I can see big things, but little things escape me.

Wonder if there are glasses for that? Perhaps I’m farsighted in life, where I’m nearsighted otherwise.

If glasses won’t help, then people can give you a cane, or make signs bigger, or you can use a guide dog.

But imagine, if you were born blind, and you didn’t know that there was such a thing as “sight”.

Imagine how the world was for Helen Keller when her teacher was finally able to unlock her mind, to let her know about words. She started to become a human being that day.

I’m constantly looking for ways that I’m blind, that I’m missing out. I share them here, with the hope that others will get something from it. Perhaps they will say “Ah! So that is what it is that I’m missing!” and their eyes will open too.