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It is not that I am colorblind; I just am color indifferent. Red and blue and yellow are all the same to me.

In remodeling my office at the parsonage my wife asked, “What color would you like the walls to be painted?”

That sounds like a good question to ask but it’s not any question to ask if you know me.

“I don’t care about the color. Whatever you think is best is okay with me.”

“It’s your office,” she said, “what color would you like the walls to be painted?”

With that, she looked at me with a very gregarious smile, which is infectious to me.

Knowing that she wouldn’t stop until she got an answer from me I said, “Paint the walls purple.”

Looking at me for a moment, she finally said, “Okay, I’ll paint it white.”

I’m beginning to learn how to solve problems in our house.

It finally came down on me the other day. We were doing our final shopping for Christmas, and I still had a couple of gifts to purchase, and she had a shopping cart full of gifts to buy.

We were just about done when I remembered a present I wanted to get, and I had completely forgotten about it. So I asked my wife, who was the chauffeur at the time, if she could stop at a store so that I could go in and get my final Christmas gift.

She parked in the parking lot, and as I got out, I said, “I won’t be long.”

I do know the car my wife has is red. That’s about as far as I can go with that. So, when I left the shopping store, I was looking for a red car.

It seemed like an effortless thing to do, but as I looked up and down the parking lot, there must’ve been thousands of red cars. Not quite, but it seemed that way. From my perspective, they all looked alike. I could not remember what kind of car my wife had, only that it was red. The fact that I remembered it was red was something.

I went to the first red car, there was nobody there and the doors were locked, so I went to several others. I could not find the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. I was almost tempted to phone in a missing person’s alert; perhaps the police could find her better than me.

Then I heard a horn blow, and I looked down the row, and there was a hand out the window waving at me. So, there she was in plain view.

When I got to the car, she was laughing hysterically, and said, “I gotcha.”

I had to admit that she did get me this time. Even if I could’ve remembered what kind of car it was, it was not where I had expected it. I don’t think I will ever live this one down.

As we were driving home, she was sitting on the driver side smiling while I was sitting on the passenger side thinking. A verse of Scripture came to my mind. “The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them” (Proverbs 20:12).

What I have learned in my lifetime is that hearing and seeing are crucial elements in every relationship.

Dr. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of God Fellowship, 1471 Pine Road, Ocala, FL 34472. He lives with his wife in Silver Springs Shores. Call him at 352-687-4240 or e-mail jamessnyder2@att.net. The church web site is www.whatafellowship.com.