Eyedrops

7:44 am

It’s another Friday morning at the surgery center. I don’t like that they call this place the surgery center. We just bring Addie here for her eye exams. They put her under general anaesthesia, so they call it surgery. Creeps me out.

See, I’m a mutant. Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of mutation that lets you fly or shoot lasers. It’s the kind that gives you eye cancer — you and possibly your kids. It’s called retinoblastoma, and it’s the reason I’m missing my right eye. My aunt lost both eyes to it. My brother died from it. There’s a chance my daughter will inherit it from me.

[caption id=”attachment_896” align=”alignright” width=”224” caption=”Addie before the eyedrops: i.e., smiling and not flailing.”][/caption]

So, every few months, we head down to the surgery center, hold the poor kid down to put in the eyedrops, then hand her off to an anaesthesiologist for a short nap while they shine bright lights into her pupils to look for tumors.

Side note: my girl fights hard when people hold her down and try to put stuff in her eyes. I’m proud.

I knew there was a chance, if I ever had a kid, that they would inherit my horrid little mutation. My wife and I talked about it before we got married. Did we want to take the risk? Did we want to risk the heartbreak of a sick child? We discussed it. We prayed about it. And in the end, we let God decide.

And now we have the awesomest kid EVAR.

It’s tempting to wait for a sure thing. It’s tempting to — oh, wait. Here comes the doctor.

8:10 am

Dr. Ruben says everything looks great. No tumors. Best possible news. Thank God.

If we had just decided to play it safe, there would be no Addie. But we asked God, and He led us in a much scarier direction.

God wants to bring us to new places. He wants us to go adventuring with Him. He has plans for us beyond our own.

That’s what we’re talking about tomorrow in the XLM Bible Study. We’re going to look at how deeply God can transform our lives. Join us at Adventures in Comics and Games at 11.