In the Twinkling of an Eye

Written by HCU Alumnus Colin R. Vine

There was hardly time for my right eye to twinkle. The pain was piercing, instant, and totally unexpected. Jennie and I had stopped for lunch and I was hurrying towards the restaurant, heading for the restroom. One of the diners told me later that he had seen the bee fly under my spectacles and into my eye. Fortunately, there is no lasting damage, but it got me thinking about the unexpected.

We had been visiting Alabama and had witnessed the devastation in the small town of Hackleburg, AL, which had been flattened by a tornado in April, with many people losing their lives. Later, on our way back south, we had to leave the Natchez Trace Parkway since a section of that highway had disappeared due to the same round of tornadoes. It was during that diversion that we arrived at that small restaurant in a small town in Mississippi, with me anxious to find the quickest route to the restroom, and a bee anxious to find the quickest route to my eye.

Someone once said that the unexpected rarely happens, but when it does, it usually happens when you least expect it. Hurricanes, tornadoes, even insects in the eye? We might survive any of those, but what if we do not?

Are you ready right now if the unexpected should happen to you? Paul describes the arrival of the end, thus, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye ...” (1 Cor 15:52 ESV). Just like my encounter with the bee, there is no time to prepare once it happens. Each one of us needs to be ready beforehand. The twinkling of an eye is just that, a twinkle -- no time at all.