Apple Of The Eye

My daughter, who teaches second grade, has compassion for her students.
No matter how well she plans, things happen and the plans have to be written in pencil.
A child gets sick and the janitor needs to be called, someone else is a bit teary and needs extra attention; another needs to use the bathroom.
She has been there herself; she has been seven years old.

When she was right around that age, she was playing outside with her sister and brothers.
We lived in a house surrounded by woods then and running in and around trees was fun.
One day, as she ran past a tree with a low branch, a twig hit her in the eye.
She came running inside, crying, with her hand over her eye.

It was difficult for me to look inside her eye since she was shielding it from the light.
I had her lay down on the sofa with her feet up and a warm compress on her eye.
She had her favorite snack and wanted to stay inside with me.

The next day, her class was going to have a big celebration and everyone was to dress up.
She had a special party dress that she wanted to wear along with her shiny black shoes.
She was able to open her eye all the way by bedtime but I could not see anything inside.
Her eye was still a little bloodshot when she went to bed.

She woke up the next morning and she was her old self again.
She was so excited to get dressed up and go to her classroom party.
Her eye was still a little red but nothing like the day before.
I waved goodbye as she got on the bus.

About 10:00 that morning the school nurse called me.
I needed to come to school and bring my daughter home.
Her eye was swollen and she was in pain.

I got to school and went to the nurse’s office.
My little girl was sitting in a chair; her shiny black shoes not even touching the ground.
She removed the compress that was on her eye.
Her eye was practically swollen shut!

Her eye was not like this when she left for school...I said to no one in particular.
I think she needs to go to the eye doctor right away, the nurse said with urgency.
I took her right to the office as an emergency patient.
She had a miniscule sliver of the twig in her eye.

It was removed and she was given special, fold-able sunglasses.
She asked the eye doctor if she could go back to school for her party.
She was given permission as long as she wore her special sunglasses, even inside.
Antibiotic drops and sunglasses were the directives.

She couldn’t wait to get back to school to tell everyone about her experience.
I allowed her to stay for her party only and then she came home.

In a desert land He found him; He guarded him as the apple of His eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads it wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. (Deuteronomy 32:10,11)

Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings. (Psalm 17:8)

Apple of His eye is another name for the pupil.
We all know what it feels like to get poked in the eye.
We can only begin to imagine how a piece a twig must have felt if left in our eye.

We are the apple of God’s eye!
Just like we protect our eyes from injury, God protects us as well.
He shield us, much like my daughter shielded her eyes with her special sunglasses.

For whoever touches you, touches the apple of His eye. (Zechariah 2:8b)
We are that special, that protected, that loved.

We know how much an eye injury can hurt.
We will go to any length to protect our eyes.

God goes to any length to protect the apple of His eye.
Any length, even sending His Son to earth as a man, to be one of us so He could save us.
To think that Jesus, fully God and fully man experienced everything we experience.
Yet was without sin.

Jesus probably experienced an eye poke as He grew up.
Maybe some shavings from Joseph’s carpentry shop got in His eye.
Jesus shielded His eyes from the desert sun as He traveled and taught about the Kingdom.

The original Hebrew for apple of the eye is literally “little man of the eye”.
How appropriate since we can see a tiny reflection of ourselves in someone else’s pupil.

Can you imagine Jesus seeing a reflection of Himself in His Father’s eyes?
Jesus, the apple of His Father’s Eye.

Can you imagine seeing a tiny reflection of yourself in Jesus’ eye?
We are the apple of Jesus’ eye, who is the apple of God’s eye.
We, who are in Christ, are the apple of God’s eye.

Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you. (John 15:19,20)

Protected.
Shielded.
Loved.