My mother always told me she could detect my mood from my eyes: When I’m happy, they’re bright green; when I’m angry, they’re dark green; when I’m sad, they’re more gray. But the past few days made my green eyes blue.

It started last Saturday, when I was preparing for two weekend concerts. My left eye was irritated, so I decided to take out my contacts for a while to rest my eyes. Except the irritation didn’t go away. I then realized the problem was my eye, which, on closer examination, was swollen, red and suddenly very photosensitive.

Over the next couple of days, I found myself having to shut my left eye, which teared down my face, just to be able to drive because the sun irritated it so badly. Focusing was impossible. Finally I saw the eye doctor, who gave me a stern talking-to.

“I can’t emphasize enough how important it is you rest your eyes,” she said after viewing my damaged cornea. “If you don’t rest your eyes over the next few days, you’ll end up with an ulcer on your cornea, and you’ll spend five days in a dark room.”

Great. So the black hair, white skin and my trademark blood-red lips don’t make me enough like a vampire.

I went online long enough to ask people to pray and provide quick updates, and then I went dark. Minimal light. Minimal use of eyes.

“You didn’t text me all day long,” my son said after returning home from an 11-hour shift. I had spent the day cleaning his room – in the dark.

My brief darkness was tolerable because of the light that is within me. Some people do not understand the hope that sustains me. But it is my rock, my strength and my peace.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. – John 1:1-5

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. – 1 John 1:7

Thanks so much for your prayers over the past few days, and thanks be to God for the gift of physical sight but especially for the gift of spiritual sight. Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art!