A New Pair of Glasses

It happened again.

I put my glasses down somewhere and had no idea where. With my tail between my legs, I entered the store to purchase a new pair. “Don’t tell me, you lost them again,” the store owner said with a grin. Because of me, he drove a Porsche.

As I sat waiting with other customers, I thought about something that happened earlier that morning. I went to the Amazon website to look at the sales report of my recently published novel. It had only been two days since I had checked it and the information had not changed. The ups and downs of sales on particular days was interesting, but the fact was I would never make back the money I spent publishing the book.

I tried to remember all the good that had happened since the book went into the marketplace: I had received notes from readers the likes of which I’ve never received, reviews made the book seem like a bestseller, and I got to spend four weeks discussing the book with a Sunday school class, filling our souls in countless ways.

“Ok, your turn,” said the shop owner. As I got up from my seat, I knew that this new pair of glasses was not the only change I needed in my vision. Whether as writers or lawyers, artists or truck drivers, mothers or fathers we need to be careful about the glasses we wear. There will always be ways to see ourselves that diminish our souls. With effort, however, we can learn to look at our lives with a new set of glasses. The key is to find them and keep them on. `

 

Burning Faith is a novel about a congregation that loses its church and finds it faith. Available on my website (www.withoutacollar.com) or through Amazon.

Check out the “Burning Faith” mix on Spotify.