Color Blind

We recently found out that one of our sons is color blind. I was surprised at the diagnosis because I never had any suspicion of it. But there we were, sitting in the optometrist's office, staring at that little book of colored dots, a trail of different colored dots forming numbers staring back at me. But he couldn't see them, any of them. That which was so obvious to me was completely hidden to him. Color Blind. It's really not a big deal, we don't need to compensate for him in anyway; he just sees the world differently than we do.  To him everything looks perfectly normal. But when I went home and googled more about it, I began to grieve a bit for him. Not that life is going to be significantly more difficult for him, or that he will be limited in any ways (although it looks like being a pilot is now off his plate of options), but I felt like I was grieving for him because I saw some pictures of what the world looks like to someone who is color blind, and to be frank, I didn't like it. It just wasn't as beautiful, rich, colorful. It looks more bland, muddled, confusing,  and boring. 

 

Oh, I wish that he could see the world the way that I see it! It is so much more beautiful, vibrant, distinct. 

Over the last few days I've been thinking about the way he sees the world and about how much more vibrant it looks to me... And how I couldn't explain the missing colors to him if I tried.  

And I began to see that link everywhere.

How God sees the world is different from how I see the world. 

Lately I'm seeing:

Hurting friends  

Redirected plans

Lost jobs

Unmet longings

Unwanted diagnoses

The sudden death of one of our beloved pastors

This looks dull and grey, I don't see the beauty in it. I can't distinguish the pain and the hurt from the growth and God's glory. It looks muddled. It honestly doesn't look pretty at all.

I don't see the beautiful color that God sees. And we quite possibly might never see it this side of heaven.  I feel like the Lord might be looking at what we see and comparing it to what He sees, and thinking "I see something much more beautiful here, they just can't see it... yet."  Lord, we want to see it, to see the beauty from ashes, but if our eyes are not made with the ability to see the same color that you see here, we will continue to trust you and to know that it exists, even if it looks very grey and dull to us.  Even if I remain color bind.

So as I hear myself saying about my son, "His reds are not my reds, neither are his greens my greens", I hear the Lord saying to me, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither and your ways my ways." Is. 55:8