I’ve been seeing flashing lights in one of my eyes since last Friday. As soon as these symptoms appeared I became concerned, but put off getting it checked out because I’ve been so busy. My symptoms not only persisted, but seemed to get a little worse, so I went online and read up on my condition and discovered that it was likely being caused by my retina tearing away from my eye. It said that I should seek medical attention immediately.
Bah! I didn’t know how I could get hold of my eye doctor on the weekend and decided I would wait it out and see if maybe it got better, and if not call him the first of the week.
It didn’t go away over the weekend, but on Monday I looked at my calendar and all of the important meetings, projects, and “stuff” that I had going on with the resort and putting together our next church service this coming Sunday, and I just couldn’t seem to find time. The symptoms persisted so finally yesterday I went to see my doctor about it.
Doc was not amused and told me that I could have gone blind.
“Yikes! I’m ugly enough without having to wear a black patch over one eye.”
I thought about it and since I didn’t want to be a pessimist, I did manage to find a little encouraging nugget for my “glass being half full instead of half empty” mantra…I told doc, “At least it’s my right eye and not my left which is my dominant (shooting) eye”.
Doc was not amused. He carefully examined me and could not find hemorrhaging or a tear in my retina. He told me to “keep a close eye on it” for the next few days… (Get it?)
He arranged an appointment for me to come back in in a couple of weeks so he could examine it again (just to make sure my retina wasn’t in the process of tearing away from my eyeball). He said, “In the meantime if the symptoms get worse, IMMEDIATELY come see me! Do you understand?”
“Uh, yeah! I get it doc.”
“Good, because this can cause blindness, don’t mess around with this Bob.”
A few minutes ago I went outside and let my little pup run around and do his thing. It’s inky black dark this morning and my eye is still flashing away like a yellow caution light. (It shows up really well at night, like a meteor or something.)
I mused that it’s ironic that the flashing light in my eye looks like a caution light. I’m being cautioned to slow down by mechanisms built into my body, (I assume by God), and therefore I should use caution. If I don’t there can be dire consequences.
So much of my life I have ignored caution lights. I just charge full speed ahead like an enraged bull in a china shop. Then I reap the consequences. Can you imagine a big wild bull actually entering a china shop and knocking fine china everywhere as it jumps and crashes through the store? The resulting mayhem would be devastating… much like portions of my life were devastating…
Don’t know why I’m such an idiot, please don’t write…
Last night I was utterly exhausted. I’ve worked myself to a point where it is unhealthy and I know that I need to slow down. I was telling someone the other day that God is our example and he worked six days and then rested. I’ve been working seven days per week; six on our resort and one on the ministry and it’s too much.
I was so tired last night that I was literally sick and could not even think straight when I went to bed. I’ve vowed to slow down some. The turtle won the race; the rabbit got burned out.
As I lay on my bed I thought about an article that one of our employees was assigned to write for our resort newsletter, (“The Buzz”), to provide some insight on the honey bees that we raise at Honey Lake. She wrote: “The 60,000 or so bees in a beehive may collectively travel as much as 55,000 miles and visit more than two million flowers to gather enough nectar to make just a pound of honey!”
Now, that’s a whole lot of mileage for one pound.
With two bee yards and a total of 30 hives on Honey Lake Plantation’s property, our 1,800,000 busy bees last year (just for our spring harvest alone) produced about 20 gallons of Wildflower and Tupelo Honey. An average gallon of honey is 12 pounds, meaning that our bees may have traveled the equivalent of 13,200,000 miles.”
I thought, “I don’t feel so bad now. Those little guys are working hard and I’m sitting around feeling sorry for myself…
STOP! Think about this kind of logic – bee brain!”
Observe the caution lights and slow down or you just might be pushing up the daisies from which the Honey Lake honey bee colony will be gathering their nectar this coming year!
We cannot ignore the caution lights in life without consequence. God cautions us to behave ourselves throughout the Bible; (not because He is mean and wants to enforce rule after rule mind you), but because He loves us and He wants us to prosper as best we can in this fallen world. Thus when he tells us not to lie, cheat, get angry, murder, steal, and to treat others with respect and love, He does so because He loves us. Likewise when He tells us that our bodies are temples and we should not drown our livers with alcohol, lay around gorging on cookies, chips, and soda on the couch and not exercise, we should listen.
If He tells us that we will be blessed by giving back a portion of what He has given us, we should listen and give His portion back to Him. And when He tells us to spend one day per week resting and worshipping, we should follow His sage advice.
Don’t be a bee brain like me. Observe the caution lights in life…
2 Tim 3:16
“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.”