My mother took me to the eye doctor in third grade.  I was not seeing well and was fitted for my first pair of glasses.  I was not enamoured with them but I did see better.  In junior high I traded my glasses for contacts and have been wearing them ever since.  My prescription hasn’t changed much over the last few decades and I just keep ordering new contacts.  However, as I age, the words on the pages in front of me are getting harder and harder to read so I made an appointment with the ophthalmologist to see if we could adjust my contacts to help me continue to read better without reading glasses.

Over the years, I have taken my children in for regular appointments but apparently hadn’t been as careful about  my own appointments as my prescription was not found in their system.  For the first time in a long time, the technician started at ground zero to get an accurate prescription.  As I sat staring at a white screen, the technician kept asking me which was better 1 or 2 and I had to explain that I couldn’t see anything.  She finally presented a capital E that was as large as the screen and I could see a faint shadowy outline of it.  

As she honed the machines and my vision cleared, I realized again that I am a blind woman who can see because of the miracle of modern medicine.  There are so many miracles in our lives:  Bodies that so often move and act in accordance with our will, faces transported to a device across the world to see and communicate with those they love, hearts that change and are softened by love and kindness.  We live in a day of miracles!

“Each of us has received gifts that we could not provide for ourselves, gifts from our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, including redemption through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  We have received life in this world; we will receive physical life in the hereafter, and eternal salvation and exaltation-if we choose it-all because of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  Every time we use, benefit from, or even think of these gifts, we ought to consider the sacrifice, generosity, and compassion of the givers.  Reverence for the givers does more than just make us grateful.  Reflecting on Their gifts can and should transform us.” (Elder Dale G. Renlund, April 2020)

I can see and when I pause to be grateful, I am changed.