Blindsided

Jared had his annual optometrist appointment today.  The good news, he no longer needs to wear glasses to read.  I was pretty thrilled since keeping track of anything in Jared's world is a challenge.  We were nearing the end of his appointment as the doctor was doing a routine check of his eyes, and he hesitated.  He looked at me, and then back into the depths of Jared's right eye.  His tone changed from jovial to concern.  I felt it change. He asked if we had discussed the spot on Jared's eye before.  No, we hadn't.  I am forgetful and sometimes just plain don't listen but, would have remembered something like this.

Let's be realistic, I selectively listen to my children when they tell me a world of information.  So when Jared sat next to me in the waiting room before this very appointment, covered up one of his eyes and said, Hey! My blindspot is almost gone! I looked at him sideways and said, what do you mean, blindspot?  He said, you know from the laser.  Huh-uh. I don't know.  Fast forward back to the doctor's tone changing to the kind that makes mama's panic.  He said, let's check something.  He covered one of Jared's eyes, and had him look at his letter board straight on, read the middle letter he said.  Jared's response was, well I can't.  I can see it, but every time I try to look at it, it disappears.  WHAT? Yep, he shined that damn, yes, damn laser into his eye ball for less than a second and broke his retina. I saw the scans.  It has beautiful straight lines and layers, and then, right there in the middle is a little spot where the line is broken.  And it causes his beautiful perfect blue eyes to have a blindspot.

I've thought about this all day.  This tiny moment of stupidity, when he made a choice he knew was not the right one and he created a blind spot.  A tiny one, but it wasn't there before.  He said, yeah, when ever I'm in class and I get bored, I close one eye and make my teacher disappear. 

We all do it.  We all make these tiny decisions that we know aren't the ones we should be making, and most of the time they don't have lasting consequences.  They don't affect much, and we keep moving forward.  But once in a while, we make a decision that we think is innocent, or we think the consequences don't apply to us, but they do.  And blindspots sometimes pop up.  And then we learn to just live life through imperfect vision.  Sometimes we even use these little blindspots to our advantage when we don't like something we see, we pretend it isn't there.  Eventually though, we have to acknowledge that we can't see.  And those sins, those tiny little blindspots become a burden and need to be healed.  Thankfully, we have the ability to completely repair our blindspots, and see clearly.  Over and over we can access this healing.

"The Atonement leaves no tracks, no traces. What it fixes, is fixed... It just heals, and what it heals, stays healed." 

-Boyd K Packer