I lost my glasses and found some perspective

I have had my glasses for over a year now but continue to lose them regularly. I will admit that I don't like wearing glasses as they are an outward sign that I am getting older. When I was younger, I wanted to wear glasses like my best friend, Lorraine. She looked so much smarter and cooler in my eyes due to her glasses. She knew then, as I do now that wearing glasses is a struggle.

You need them to see clearly but you are weighed down both by the pressure they exert (however slightly) on your nose and ears and by the reality that they are there on your face - all the time. You seem to know you weren't born to wear these but they are result of our flawed bodies in a imperfect world.

So I spent last night and most of today without my glasses (hence my late post) and I really need my glasses to see clearly and go headache free. As a result, I was unable to do much of what I usually do and left to do only the essentials of my life. No late night post for you, no early morning e-mail check for me. I was left to keep my hands off the computer and eyes off of books. I could not do what was important!

I was left to do such things as dress my little ones and get my kids breakfast. I did laundry early and cleaned my room (hoping to find the glasses). I was reduced to a pre-computer life and I found myself out of sorts (which at times I took out on myself and my children with snippy answers and general grumpiness).

However, by mid-morning, I had to realize my mood was ruining everyone else's and I needed to make some apologies - to my children and to God. After that was done, I realized I getting quite a bit done despite impaired vision. In fact, I was doing the work I needed to do, really needed to do - the work God intended me to do. Perhaps, as my grandmother would say when things didn't go her way, God set some things aside so that what He wanted could happen without us (and our plans) getting in the way.

What God wanted this morning was children dressed and fed and household chores completed. Not that that doesn't occur every morning in my house but I usually do those mundane chores on my way to other 'more important' activities (those aforementioned emails and postings). Today, they were my only activity as I couldn't manage anything else with my fuzzy vision.

Taking care of my children should never what I do on the way to something else. As important as e-mail has become and as important as impacting on the world via the internet can be (just ask the Pope), our family is our first and foremost vocation and path to heaven.

I found my glasses - hence this post - but I am considering setting them aside each morning until after the important stuff is done. The e-mails can wait, a blog will still be there and a post can be delayed - a bowl of Cheerios and a Thomas the Tank Engine shirt might not!