“How many pairs do you have now?” my friend Connie asked me.

(She hadn’t noticed I was wearing a new pair of glasses until I mentioned them.)

I had gotten this pair the day before in the mail. The mail, you ask? Yes. I “tried on glasses” via a website, where I uploaded my photo, looked intently at frame specs (ha! see what I did there?), and made a decision — after deliberating for two months.

This is the fifth — and, my husband hopes, last — pair of glasses I have ordered online for my current prescription. Five. For me. In just over one year. I know, it sounds rather ridiculous that a person would need that many glasses. Four should be enough, right? The everyday pair, the polarized sunglasses, and a pair of reading (computer) glasses for home and a pair for work.

It’s just that the pair I originally chose for everyday use kept stretching out of shape and threatening to fall off my face if I looked down or sweated, which I make a practice of doing, apparently. I wanted a pair of beautiful, light, strong, hypoallergenic stainless steel frames that would flatter my face and hold up to the wear and tear my klutzy self likely will deal them.

I think I got them.

Actually, I know I got them. I have been wearing them.

My first full day with the glasses, I walked the stairs at work — which I do often to relieve my back from the torment of sitting in front of a computer all day — and then slipped outside to walk for a few minutes, smiling because I was so silly.

“Did you just go outside and walk after climbing the stairs?” the receptionist asked me when I returned. He was utterly amazed, of course, at my physical prowess.

I then confessed the purpose of my mini jaunt to the outside world:  I just wanted to test my photochromatic lenses. The lenses are so clear when I’m inside I was afraid the manufacturer had made a mistake and sent me regular lenses. But to my delight, they turned dark outside in the sunlight (I took them off in the sun to check; I wanted to see their darkness rather than just see through their darkness) and became clear swiftly when I returned inside.

Amazing technology. I am not going to throw away my polarized sunglasses, mind you, but I will keep them in my car instead of my purse, trusting the photochromatic lenses to get me to and from the parking lot. No more awkward transitioning from one pair of glasses to another when walking from sunlight into store light. No more awkward wearing of sunglasses in the grocery store because I forgot my regular glasses in the car.

When I first started wearing glasses, I could see without them. Now, twenty years later, not so much. Just last week I had to have a friend open my locker at the health club when I returned from the shower, sans eyeglasses, because I couldn’t see the numbers on the combination lock. As much as I hate wearing glasses, I love being able to see.

Just this week I read a blog post by Alicia Bruxvoort in which she admitted rifling through her craft supply closet and using her hot glue gun to attach “googly eyes” and “wobbly watchers” to the salsa jar and the milk jug, tissue box, egg carton, and tubes of toothpaste. She wasn’t pulling a prank on her family; she was merely reminding herself that God was watching.

 For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).

Continue reading “Four eyes or why I see clearly…”