For Christmas I was given the opportunity to own a pair of “Designed by me” Oakley Sunglasses.  I was so excited. I designed them to be maize and blue… just like my favorite football team, U of M.

I love how they look and now I would own a pair absolutely free, or were they?

You see, I have to wear glasses full- time.  I need them for distance and I need them to read close up, so this is where the dilemma started.

How hard can it be to wear contacts?

My husband was encouraging but also said things like “how are you going to put in a contact? You can’t even put drops in your eyes.”

I was determined.  I called and made an appointment for 2 hours later.

I am excited but also nervous.

I get through the appointment and the Doctor is saying things like “we will try, this first.  If this does not work then we will try another route.” Basically he was saying because I have astigmatism in one eye and I wear bifocals, and I need glasses for distance, that we would be in a trial and error stage.

I sit down and watch the cartoon video on the do’s and don’ts of contact wearing and care.

The video finishes, I wash my hands and now the fun begins.  I need to put in and take out my new contacts.

It takes a while, I get frustrated go figure… I am the one who cooks on HI so that it’ll get done faster, forgetting the fact it also burns and does not cook evenly.  I breathe, pray, and finally the contacts are in.

The doctor looks at them, I can see at about 8 feet away, in a small confined room and I can see up close, not great, but I can see.  I keep telling myself that I just need to get used to them.

I leave the office, walk out to the car and we start driving… oh this is not good, everything is blurry.  I just need to get used to them, I keep telling myself.

Friday is a snowstorm so we are in all day, and Saturday I have to sit for a couple of hours through a training.  I am so excited, I get to wear my new sunglasses. Wait a minute, I can’t read the street signs.  Whats going on?  I get to the training and I can’t read the HUGE powerpoint screen… I am talking a screen that you see in a Mission Control room, oh wait, it was in a state of the art command center, and I can’t read the powerpoint. I’ll spare you the details of trying to take them out (it took like 15 minutes).

Monday, comes and I call the doctor they can see me at 2pm.

“Ok, so that is not going to work”, he says.  Lets try these.  I put them in and take them right back out. NOPE.

“Ok so lets try this brand and now your left eye is for up close and your right eye is for distance.”

I said, you think my brain is going to like this?

The doctor said, people do it all the time.

OK, I was saying in my head, you are the doctor.

All the way home I had one hand partially over my right eye, just so I didn’t get sick trying to drive.  I was willing to try this for 48 hours and see if my brain would rewire my eyes so that it would work, because the last resort were contacts for distance only and keep readers with me at all times.

About 5pm, I decided to take out my contacts.  NOPE, not happening.  I tried. I cried. I prayed. I made a pact with God. I was so desperate, that I had my husband even try to get the contacts out.

At 6:30,  my husband and I were driving to the doctor’s office to get my contacts out of my eyes.

This morning as I was getting ready, I started dreading, not the putting in my contacts, but tonight the taking them out.

As I started to get my contacts out of their case, I heard God saying “you said, if I got them out, you would not put them back in.”

I immediately started thinking that I was a failure if I did not put those contacts in and that I let them win.

My word this year is “OVERCOMER” and I felt that if I gave up I was not overcoming.

I realized though, that I was being held hostage by a lie.

The lie was that if I quit, I was a quitter, I was a loser. I would some how be less than.

No, I needed to realize what truth was.

For me why would I continue to put contacts in my eyes, just so I could wear a really cool pair of sunglasses? The contacts, in reality were doing more to frustrate me, they were causing me headaches and according to the Doctor my prescription would never be exactly correct?

So my aha moment came over a pair of sunglasses, and contacts; what is it that you need to walk away from because it’s not healthy but because you are afraid of being labeled a quitter, a loser or thinking you will be thought less than; you continue with that unhealthy choice?