by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

Lash down. I repeat, we have a lash down. This is not a drill. Go to DEFCON 2.

I was at a conference, just stepping up to the mic. Two seconds in, and wouldn’t you know it, one fake lash goes down. All weekend long, those lashes had been working perfectly. But up to the mic and…flop. It didn’t flop into my eye; at least there was that. But it flopped over it. So it was like looking through little prison bars. Lash-jail.

I had to laugh. We all did. Turns out my eyelashes stole the show. Oh, the eye-rony. I dubbed myself the flappy-lashed speaker who tends to come unglued. And for the duration of the conference (could we call this backlash?), people were handing me glue like that was the best joke of all time. I now have quarts, thanks. Yep, up to my eyeballs in glue.

Mind you, that glue holds an inherent danger of its own. I have a good friend who over-glued at an event and accidentally glued an eye shut. I was surprised at everything she had to do to undo her perma-wink. It was, clearing throat here, eye-opening.

So. Product warning: Never allow Rhonda Rhea—or her friends—near your lashes. Or your glue. Or your eyes. At least my friend and I see eye to eye on that.

The Apostle Paul, on the other hand, focused on a different kind of eye-opening experience. In Ephesians 1:18 he writes, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints” (CSB).

Depending on where they’re focused, the eyes of our hearts sometimes need to get sort of de-glued as well. At what are the eyes of our heart longingly staring? On what do they fixate? What consumes our thoughts? What are we living for? God created in each of us a heart longing to know and worship Him. Our hearts were made to be filled with a God-focus. If we ignore His calling and let our heart-eyes focus on meaningless fillers, it makes sense that we’ll become dissatisfied with life. Frustration and hopelessness become our little life-prison.

But beautifully glued together with His calling is the hope we long for. His enlightenment brings freedom and a wealth of spirit we can’t experience in anything else in this world. It’s like taking off the blinders of everything fake and fluttery, removing obstructions that block the light. Every time we make a conscious decision to stop staring at temporary worldly delights that dull our spiritual vision, we’re saying yes to life as it’s meant to be.

In our unregenerate state, our hearts were perfectly content with darkness. The enlightenment of our hearts brings deeper understanding that darkness isn’t merely a poor substitute for light, it’s no substitute at all. It’s hopeless, empty, blindness. But oh, the glory-light of Jesus! “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ’” (2 Corinthians 4:6 CSB).

Jesus! Know the hope of His calling. Know the wealth of your inheritance in Him. See Him. He is evermore more than meets the eye.

Rhonda Rhea is an award-winning humor columnist for great magazines such as HomeLife, Leading Hearts, The Pathway, and many more. She is the author of 19 books, including the popular romantic comedies co-authored with her daughter Kaley Rhea, Off-Script & Over-Caffeinated and Turtles in the Road. Rhonda and Kaley have also teamed up with Bridges TV host Monica Schmelter for the Messy to Meaningful books and TV projects. Along with Beth Duewel, Rhonda writes the Fix Her Upper series, and she also co-authored Unruffled: Thriving in Chaos with Edie Melson. She speaks at conferences and events from coast to coast, serves on many boards and committees, and stays busy as a publishing consultant. Rhonda says you can find her living near St. Louis drinking too much coffee and snort-laughing with her pastor/husband, five grown children, and a growing collection of the most exceptional grandbabies.