Jennifer Rothschild —

“You look so much like your mom did when she was your age.”

Those were the words of a friend as she scrolled through some family photos with me.

“Do you remember her face?”

I don’t know what it’s like anymore to look into people’s faces.

It’s been many years since I saw a face clearly due to the blinding effects of my eye disease.

As a child, I looked into my mother’s face, with her soft olive skin. I know I looked into the sweetness of my dad’s dancing blue eyes and watched his forehead wrinkle when he was in deep thought. I looked into the freckled faces of my sometimes annoying little brothers. I looked into the wise eyes of my beloved grandparents.

Those were the loved one’s faces I saw before blindness.

The faces of my husband and two sons, I have never seen.

What is so interesting, and frustrating, is that even though I know I saw all those precious faces, I can’t remember what they looked like.

In my memory, they are now draped in shadows, blurred, and indistinguishable. They are as absent as the faces of my husband and sons. It’s heartbreaking for the memory of faces I love to fade in my mind’s eye.

Physical blindness is difficult, that’s for sure. But, far more devastating is living with spiritual blindness.

• To allow your circumstances to blind you to the goodness of God is far more debilitating than physical darkness.
• To silence the voice of God who longs to tell you of His love and forgiveness is far worse than physical deafness.
• To be paralyzed by fear is far more confining than physical immobility.

Spiritual sight allows us to really see what is beautiful and good … life that cannot be shrouded by darkness, silenced by deafness, or stilled by paralysis.

I once had physical sight, but now I am blind.

I once was spiritually blind, but through faith in Christ, now I see!

My spiritual gaze is fixed on the truth that unless God chooses to heal my blindness, the very first face I’ll see with clarity will be the face of Jesus.

So, ask God to open your spiritual eyes so you can really see how good He is.

“For God, who said, ‘Let there be light in the darkness,’ has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6 NLT)

Keep trusting, my friend. Earth may be hard, but Heaven is coming and — oh ,oh, oh — it’s gonna be good!

Originally published July 3, 2015,  as “The First Face I’ll See,” at JenniferRothschild.com.  Republished with permission.