The Man With One Eye

“I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight. These things I will do for them, and not forsake them.“ (Isaiah 42:16)

He was born with only one eye. As a child, he tried wearing a glass eye, but after several infections he gave it up and wore a patch instead.  For a while, looking like a pirate was cool, but the patch was itchy and sat like a neon sign on his face, proclaiming to the world that he was different.  Eventually doctors stitched his eyelid closed, and life went on.

I met Tim when my family had the opportunity to host members of a traveling drama team from a Christian college. As we sat around the table after their performance, I listened to the conversation that ensued.

“This flower is beautiful,” Tim commented on the Peony sitting in a vase on the table.  “I’ve never smelled anything so fragrant.  It’s neat how the outer petals are a different color from the rest of the flower.” 

As he carried his plate to the counter, he noticed the rock collection that littered the windowsill above the sink.  “Wow! Look at the different colors in this one. Where did it come from?”  As he read the labels of their places of origin, he examined with interest the red rock of Pike’s Peak, the smoothness of the stone from Cabo San Lucas, and the bleached white sliver from Israel’s barren hillsides.

As the evening progressed, he noticed the fort in the backyard, the rich red of our dog Winston’s long fur, and the bright, almost hidden blue of Julie the Lovebird’s tail feathers.  It was apparent that Tim was amazingly observant.  I commented later to my husband that “Tim sees more with one eye than most of us see with two.”

While this is true in the physical sense, Tim also sees things spiritually that others miss.  In the drama his acting troupe performs, Tim plays one of Christ’s disciples.  In one of the most poignant scenes, Tim sits around the table with the Savior, eating, and drinking, and listening to stories of the Kingdom.

In Old Testament days, Tim would have been forbidden to come into God’s presence.  Leviticus 21:18 tells us that those who had physical imperfections were banished from the temple. “Any man who has a defect shall not approach: a man blind or lame, who has a marred [face] or any [limb] too long.”  This restriction was to demonstrate the futility of depending on ourselves and our good works to merit God’s favor.  Only perfection could satisfy God’s law, and within ourselves, we fall woefully short.

Thankfully, Tim knows the Savior.  As he sits at the table as one of Christ’s disciples, he demonstrates what it means to be blind physically, but to see spiritually.  Instead of depending on what He can bring to Christ, Tim’s hope is resting in what Christ, through his sacrificial death on the cross, brings to him.  His presence demonstrates what the hymn writer describes, “Nothing in my hands I bring.  Simply to thy cross I cling.”  Tim, though physically blind, sees more than many who can see with both eyes.  By trusting in Christ for his salvation, Tim says with the man born blind in John 9:26, “One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see." 

The LORD opens [the eyes of] the blind; The LORD raises those who are bowed down; The LORD loves the righteous.  (Ps 146:8)