Eyes to See
By Vickey Pahnke Taylor

“When I take a small pebble and place it directly in front of my eye, it takes on the appearance of a mighty boulder.  It is all I can see.  It becomes all-consuming — like the problems … that affect our lives …When the things you realistically can do …. are done, leave the matter in the hands of the Lord and worry no more …The Lord will take the pebble that fills your vision and cast it down among the challenges you will face in your eternal progress.   It will then be seen in perspective.”   Elder Richard G. Scott

It is amazing how different things can look to us, depending upon where we stand. A room looks different to a five-foot-four-inch woman than to a six-foot-two-inch man. He can see shelves and items that are not in her vision.  She may notice things at a lower level than he takes in.  As we journey through mortality, things may sometimes look different to us than they are.  They might loom larger in our view or affect our perspective of life, and of our place in it.  A problem may become “all consuming,” as Elder Scott pointed out.  It may cast shadows in the light of our lives.  Not a good feeling.  There is a better way to do life.

Elder Russell M. Nelson once beautifully taught that “With celestial sight, trials impossible to change become possible to endure” (Ensign, May 1988, p.35).  What might celestial sight do for us as we relate to one another and grow together?

Because our circumstances, spirit, and outlook are individual and a bit different from every other person in the world, we may see things differently.  Our view of the world, internally, may be as different from our neighbor’s as a room into which we walk.

Elder Neal Maxwell said that “When we see things as they really were, really are, and really will be (see Jacob 4:13) ... we are able to put things properly into perspective and greatly increase our ability to understand what our senses take in.  Because we are focusing on a more celestial way of living, we are not fooled into seeing things in an altered state.  Maybe we can say that we see things as we are instead of seeing things as they are.”

One early morning, years ago, I stood in a hospital hall with my sister.  We were waiting for our opportunity to enter the ICU and see our dad, who was a patient there. Our mother was inside with him, and we were each upset and tense.  We saw a woman coming down the hallway who looked bedraggled and — to be honest — in pretty bad shape.  Her hair was a mess, she had huge circles under her eyes, and she seemed as though her thoughts were a thousand miles away.  My sister called her a bag lady.  We watched as she passed us by and entered into the ICU.  A few minutes our Mother came out into the hallway — accompanied by this “bag lady.”  Mom introduced us as her daughters to this woman — my dad’s medical doctor!  She wrapped her arms around both of us, explaining how much she cared about our father and how sorry she was for his condition. 

This woman, whom I had seen as tired, old, and unkempt, transformed before my very eyes.  She was beautiful!  How fitting that she should be a heart doctor … her own heart seemed as large as the state of Texas.  There are no words to express how embarrassed my sister and I were — and how bad we felt for our unfit judgment of another human being.  Indeed, this lovely and caring woman did not transform.  I was the one in need of transforming my own heart and vision! Suddenly, with new eyes and a better perspective, there was standing before me a truly beautiful woman — inside and out.

Have you ever thought that you may be seeing things differently than they are?  Less than they are?  That your view of things may be unlike any other person?  That this vision may need to be altered, enlarged, or shifted to better see? That it may be necessary to remove the dark lenses through which we view ourselves, our situations, and our environments?

It may be worth posing these questions to ourselves: “Do you see what I see?”  “Am I seeing with a clear, celestial vision?”  “Am I making rash judgments because I do not see all that I should be seeing?”

The boulder that we see may seem a mere pebble to another.  As our vision improves, that boulder may take on new shape and size — and we may suddenly be able to see around it. The people who look bothersome or unattractive to us may suddenly appear in their real, beautiful state.  If we have eyes to see.