The Patient Pace of Perfect Vision: 

20/20 Finale

Today starts September. Hints of fall showed up as wee pumpkins in the coastal patches we viewed on a recent visit with family in Northern California. Some called the timing of this trip serendipity. But when I stepped into the rental car and my sister called to beg me to take mom to the doctor that very afternoon, timing was divine. My mother is in good hands and health. And it’s well past time to blog now that MBH,my beloved husband, Bud, and I are back in the Deep South.

Colleagues of MBH warned that our family would find Georgia's August days unbearably hot and  humid. Triple-digit Fahrenheit temperatures, they claimed, would melt us. A handful of days may have edged 100 degrees, but nothing like those in jungle heat. Through sun-tinted eyeglasses I squinted into the empty sky over the village, searching for shady clouds to gather against the steep foothills of the Himalayan range. Villagers looked the monsoons to feed water pots, rice fields, and gardens, to rinse away greasy sweat from every pore and hair follicle, to lift the claustrophobic pressure of humidity that sapped energy.

For a few weeks the Deep Southern summer seemed just as oppressive as in Southern Nepal. I thank God for the inventive minds that created air conditioners and electricity to run them. Still, our second August Deep South seems sweeter and cooler than those hot season months on the northern India “Terai” or plains. Recently our thermometer has dipped into daytime highs of eighties, even seventies! MBH is faithful to keep our lawn green with sprinklers, but God has turned on sky sprinklers almost every other day.

I praise my Maker for another blessing. My eye doctor recently measured 20/20 vision in my surgically corrected, far distance eye, huzzah! Or perhaps the Jewish doctor might say, “Blessed be the name of the L_rd!” Sans glasses, worn since I was nine, my Lasik and PRK Lasek eyes now delight over lush landscapes. Rusty dry lawns and fresh cotton fields grow lush green against the red clay. Deciduous trees dress like a Southern belle in full-leaf regalia. Flowers that had withered in early August now stand to blush petals. Human brows may be furrowed but at least we don’t have to mop them of sweat.

Unless one is in Los Angeles, where on this 2009 September day, triple digit temperatures blast from fires consuming mountainsides and homes. Pray God’s protection for the firefighters. Pray safety for the LA families affected. Appeal to God for the approaching Baja California hurricane to soften and hasten to quench the flames. Not only can God send a Jewish doctor to heal my sight, God sent his One and Only Jewish Son into the flames of Doom and up from the dead to rescue and save many. Even you.

Let Him give you 20/20 perfect vision by faith.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son for you. Amen