Lazy Eye

“Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.”

2 Chronicles 7:15 NIV

When Jordyn was in elementary school my wife worked in the office at the school. This was a pretty cool arrangement for the most part. Although one day my wife called and asked me “do you know what your daughter wore to school today?” Apparently not. When she left the house, Jordyn had on a cool looking jacket with some type of shirt to match. Apparently when she walked by the office in a tube top, my wife noticed. She had shed her outer layer and somehow thought my wife would not see her.

About a week into Jordyn’s second-grade year her teacher walked into the office. I remember the words “She shouldn’t be here. We have a problem.” She proceeded to tell us that Jordyn’s reading level was not good, her testing for grade level overall was not good enough. It was pretty sobering.

To make a long story short we ended up seeing an eye specialist and found out Jordyn had Lazy eye and Strabismus. In other words, her eyes were crossed, and her brain had started to favor one eye over the other. If she was trying to read, her eyes were literally looking at two different words and we did not know it. She had already worn glasses since about age three. We thought that was enough. It was obviously not. The doctor ended up patching one eye. We were just getting started.

Her teacher, Mrs. Harper, turned into a bit of a task master, and I mean that in the best way I can say it. She laid out a plan for Jordyn and did the work to help her get there. Jordyn was at times highly frustrated. She probably averaged an hour of homework per night – in second grade. Mrs. Harper also followed up with Mary and I often. Are we reading enough? Are we practicing math facts enough? To be honest we had to tell Jordyn more than once that her teacher actually liked her. She was going to appreciate it, her teacher was simply setting the bar high and helping her get there.

She worked and she pushed. She demanded results and got them. She did not let one minute of time go unused. It worked. She set the stage for a kid who no longer had to struggle to keep up. That year helped her just be her. She no longer worried about the basics of school. Those can be hard enough. It helped her be the free spirit we knew her to be. It’s not possible to tell her how much we appreciate her. If there is a lifetime impact award, it would have her name on it.

Looking back Jordyn learned to work hard. She faced the choice of being determined or giving up. She learned to set and accomplish a goal for herself. It also strikes me as I remember this, to fix the problem we ended up placing a patch on the good eye. This forced the weaker eye to do all the work. The end result was two eyes working together but it took time.

If I draw the comparison to my spiritual life, I think sometimes I can have Spiritual Laziness. We all want God to use our strengths. But sometimes, maybe even often times, God uses our weakness to make the biggest statement. Sometimes my spiritual eye and my eye on this world are not working together. I think God often places a patch over the stronger of the two and makes me work on the weaker. This can be frustrating. I go to Him and wonder why I have to work so hard when He could just make this easy. I think He routinely has to tell me to stop looking at two things at once. He wants me to be free, but He wants it due to His grace, not my effort.

How many times does God have to work or push to get me where He knows I am going to end up? Do I try to learn, or do I complain all the way? Does He ever make it “easy” just because I want Him to?

Can I identify the spiritual “patch” I am wearing like loss of a job, difficulty with kids or other struggle? How might God be using this?

Challenge: Why do I always want to look through my earthly eye when God so clearly tries to make the spiritual eye see more clearly?

Rick Claiborn