Color Blind

Recently I stumbled upon some YouTube videos of color-blind people receiving EnChroma color blind glasses for their birthday. Color blindness is normally found in boys and men and can vary in intensity. Some men can see some colors and others see everything in a muted muddy kind of color spectrum. Color-blindness is often hereditary and unless someone wants to be a pilot, it rarely limits a person’s life.
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Bonnie Piovesan

The videos I watched were of grown men receiving glasses for their birthday. They were fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and husbands. Their loved ones scattered colorful balloons around, and they all wore bright colored clothes. The men were handed a box and everyone watched as they unwrapped it and it seemed like everyone held their breath while their loved one tried on the glasses. The men would try them on and look around, and in all of the videos you could see their brain trying to decipher what they were seeing. The glasses would come off for a few seconds and go back on and suddenly you would notice the moment their brain registered something was different. One man put on the glasses and did not notice anything at first and began eating his lunch. Prompted to take them off and try again he was suddenly still and silent as a world of color flooded his brain. The reaction was universally the same, awe and silence, wide eyed wonder, and then tears.

It was beyond heartwarming to see these men, from various ages and walks of life seeing color for the first time. Some of the men were stoic souls who did not seem like the type to cry easily. However, when they cried so did their loved ones. One gentleman had been wearing his glasses for over a year and was well accustomed to his new world of colors. He was standing on a beach waiting to see his first sunrise in color. He had his glasses on his head as he narrated his next steps, he closed his eyes and pulled his glasses down, he said, “I’m going to open my….” He was so struck with wonder he could not finish his sentence. He stood there for a moment in awe and silence. Even after a year of seeing the world in color he was once again in tears at the new beauty before him.
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These stories brought to mind a passage in 1 Corinthians 13. This chapter is often known as the love chapter and the last verses of this chapter can be easily overlooked.
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We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing Him directly just as He knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
1 Corinthians 13:12-13 (The Message)

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For now, we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully,
even as I am fully known.
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And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. 
But the greatest of these is love. 
​1 Corinthians 13:12-13 (NIV)

Paul is describing to the early church the power of love in the life of a believer. Paul also recognizes that as a human on earth we often do not see things clearly. He is seeking to encourage the believers that even though we cannot see clearly all that God is doing right now, someday we will. What will it be like to have all of eternity visible to our new eyes, what will the face of God look like? Will our soul even be able to register the beauty of it at first, or will we need a moment to adjust to what we are finally able to see clearly for the first time?

The Bible describes heaven a few times, and the Bible is even so bold to say some things are too wonderful for us to understand. I have a feeling the families with a color-blind loved one knows what this is like. How do you describe color to someone who only sees one color or a muddy world? Especially since a colorless world does not necessarily deprive someone of life and happiness. How can God fully explain heaven and what it is like to be in His presence if we only have human eyes to see with? Thankfully someday we will see God face to face. I imagine our response will be just like those seeing color for the first time, awe and silence, wide-eyed wonder followed by tears of joy.

​In His Name, Bonnie