Insight rather than outsight is my lot in life. I am one of the lucky ones who has learned to walk into a room blinded by the backdrop of a bright window and wonder what in the world I might run into first. While others love social engagements and “parties” of all sorts, I’d rather be a wall flower. And most times that is how I feel. So I do not heed the “come in, come in” when my body is riddled with the bullets of anxiety and I want to back up. Making sure that I do not run into anything or upset the apple cart is my first priority. It’s hard not to say, “Don’t push me over a cliff, go first and I’ll follow.”

The other morning I let my anger get the best of me. One of the most difficult things about tunnel vision is missing out of seeing something. Often it is the obvious street pole on the edge of the sidewalk. But sometimes it is less obvious, like the water glass on the edge or even middle of the counter. With the narrowing of the viewing hole, many things just go into oblivion. Thus, when the dog decided to haul if with my latest new crochet work, the string follows it. I found the work, but the hook was “no where” for me to be seen. My anger was just boiling.

I had played with Kona. I had cleaned house and found toys and threw balls for him to fetch. I had taken care of all of his needs. It was time to move some laundry. My return to the living room found the work across the living room floor. But no hook could be found. I have even changed the hooks that I am using to the original boye metal hooks that my Grandma gave me. No foam or plastic nylabone for the dog chew option.

How can the past stick like glue so well? Everyone else is loving the fall decor. Bringing out all of the leafage and pumpkins. There was a little saying when I was a kid. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” that is so not true. Words ring in your ears for decades. When I was fourteen and diagnosed with RP, the doctor wanted to protect my eyes, by putting me in orange colored lenses. He felt that keeping the UV rays out of my eyes was so important. I had never worn sunglasses. People just did not do that back then. Halloween eyes, pumpkin face and other such bully talk became the normal poke fun and Yvonne. I do not remember anyone ever asking me about why I was wearing the orange lens now.

Sticks and stones, right.

I learned that hurling words was just as harsh as hurling stones. The rock that found my eyebrow when I was a toddler left a visible scare. The words that my school mates used stuck like sticks in the eye that would never be removed. Words do hurt.

There are people who push you over the edge into the black abiss. I remember in my early years of marriage how my husbands family liked to go up to a local steak house to eat. The building had two doors to enter through before getting into the dining hall. It never failed that others would try to hold the door and try to push me into the dark room. I can still “feel” the panic rise up in me when I think of this. I learned that some people do not know how to lead. It is just not in them. While serving can be a natural tendency for them, leading does not come naturally. Some are often better at pushing than leading. I leaned that you can never “push” a blind person.

So there are genetic tendencies in all families. Genetic blessings and curses. There is the genes for diabetes, the genes for cancer, the genes for arthritis, the genes for blindness. And we could go further into the genes for higher cholesterol and strokes or dementia. When we looka t our relatives we can pretty much see ourselves in the mirror on the wall. The future is right in front of us, so to speak.

This past week at my little kiddos table, their sweet moma began the Bible lesson for the morning with a big word. “Immutability” she explained is the character of God and His never changing personhood.. God does not change. He is always the same. The little two year old dropped her head in her hands and said “I don’t like that big word. It’s scary!” Of course my thoughts went to the smiling Heavenly Father trying to help this little mind grasp such a large concept. I considered my ability to maintain emotional calm in my own life as the table moment suddenly turned chaotic.

God never changes. He is always love. I heard a sermon the other day about the fact that God is not anger. He may respond in anger, but it is always His Holy response to sin. God is not the emotional uncontrolled feeling. He is just, loving, merciful and compassionate. His is not wrath. We look at love as an emotional reaction to a moment or a way of being treated. Love is a choice, and action, a decision one must make when an otherwise inappropriate response could be made. God is love even when he responds to evil and sin, and that is what paves the way for forgiveness.

After five days of stay-cation I’m finally wrapping up this thought process. There is probably a lot more that could be said. But for now it fascinates me how people slowly rot. There is a lot of Bible verses about that. Understanding our worlds’s laws of composting material is happening right within out very being is not pleasant. I don’t want to think about the day when I can no longer see anything at all. But having the insight to realize we look at our own future when we look at our aging parents is important for how we choose to take care of ourselves at those we love.

When life is constantly changing and shifting beneath my feet I am glad to know that God never changes. James 1:17 is the the Bible verse for this weeks’s focus writing. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, down from the Father of lights, with whom these is no change like shifting shadows.” I’m not sure which version my daughter is using to teach her children that verse, but I do like the shifting shadows part. The sun that casts a shadow and makes us feel long or short by the gravity of the day, the sun does not seem to change. The shadow does though. And God does not change. He still loves us the same whether gravity has little affect on our body or much like in old age.