Article April 19, 1999 Issue

Now I see clearly

How one woman set aside the need for glasses

By Mary-Louise Collins

WHEN I WENT to renew my driver's license, I didn't pass the vision test. I wasn't surprised, because for sometime I had not been seeing clearly at a distance. After getting the required glasses, I returned for my license.

I had never needed corrective lenses before, and being accustomed to turning to God for help, I saw this need as an opportunity to rely on God. I wanted to demonstrate the truth that God's creation has no defects. I needed to see myself as His child, as the reflection of the all-seeing God, with spiritual vision clear and perfect, never blurred or dimmed. I also needed to refute the false belief that age adversely affects vision. I could not accept that I was an aging mortal. Man is, in truth, the eternal idea of God, His spiritual image and likeness. A spiritual idea doesn't grow old, break down, or deteriorate. To see clearly and without distortion is our divine right, as God's idea. I prayed as the Psalmist, "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law" (Ps. 119:18).

From my years of study of Christian Science, I had learned the truth that God has given us spiritual, immortal vision. I had accepted the description of eyes in the Glossary of the Christian Science textbook: "Eyes. Spiritual discernment,—not material but mental" (Science and Health, p. 586). But I had become so busy that I had unwittingly accepted the universal belief that age or accident could impair sight. I felt I didn't have time to study Christian Science as I had in the past.

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