Reflections

As I looked at Bryce's most recent post, I was reminded of so many things...

I don't know what grade it all started in, but I'm sure most of you remember having the school nurse sit you down and have you look at a circle with hundreds of little colored dots in it, and ask you what you saw. I have affectionately come to call this the "I feel stupid test." Its technical name is the "Ishihara Colorblindness Test." It is named after a Japanese doctor who conjured up the terrible thing. I speak so fondly of this test because my examination would go something like this:

Nurse [showing first page]: What do you see?

Justin [gleeful and giddy as could be]: 6!

Nurse [showing the next page]: What do you see here?

Justin [looking intently at the page]: Ummm... 3?

Nurse [turning to the next page]: Good, what do you see here?

Justin [focused with all my might, going cross-eyed trying to see something]: Ummm... nothing.

This was all preceded, and followed, by all of my classmates and friends whipping through the whole book, getting each and every one of them right. Boy did I feel dumb. No matter how hard I tried, year after year I was left feeling inferior to all those around me. Seventh grade rolled around, and there was that test again (the last time that I have taken it). Oh, how I dreaded it! It came my turn. I sat down, correctly identified the first, guessed on the second, and felt utterly defeated on the third. As I lowered my head in utter shame, I heard the sweetest three words: "You------are------ colorblind." It rang so true! I was no longer ashamed for not being able to correctly identify blue, purple, red, brown, green, yellow, etc. (I don't want to make all my weaknesses known). Would it have been so hard for them to have told me this seven years earlier!

Since that day, I have had the great privilege to tell many people that I am colorblind. I don't mind a bit. It is my lot in life, and I am happy to live colors through the eyes of those around me. Now don't get me wrong, I can still see color. I just can't match anything, or correctly identify colors. Sometimes I think a browning tree looks red, or a yellow one looks green. Don't get me started on blue and purple. I will never understand those two colors, or when someone says, "it is kind of blue-ish purple-ish."

One day I sat listening to primary children sing, "My Heavenly Father Loves Me" (Clara W. McMaster, Primary Children's Song Book, 228). It is one of my favorite primary song, but this day it took on new meaning. One of the lines says, "He gave me my eyes that I might see the color of butterfly wings..." Though I love butterflies, I was not given eyes to see the color of their wings, nor the colors of flowers or leaves, or my wife's eyes. Well, He hasn't given me those eyes yet. Someday He will, and someday I will see the color of butterfly wings, and the color of my wife's beautiful eyes.

But in the meantime, I hate color-dot tests and Magic Eye.