{"id":399,"date":"2021-04-19T13:48:39","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T13:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/evergladesphotographer.com\/?p=399"},"modified":"2021-04-19T13:48:40","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T13:48:40","slug":"i-was-blind-now-i-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/evergladesphotographer.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/19\/i-was-blind-now-i-see\/","title":{"rendered":"I was blind, now I see"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As a child, growing up in the inner city of New York. I dreamt of mountains, valleys, and creeks, of hidden waterfalls that few do venture to. I dreamt of seeing oceans, roaming through canyons, and hiking through barren forests. I dreamt of being free to explore every facet of my life, free of boundaries, far away from my comfort zone.<br>However, such a dream, I never thought would be possible, for I was close to being clinically blind. What vision I had in my younger years was through large bifocal glasses, without them I was lost and my world was truly a blur. I yearned desperately to envision that which others took for granted, to remove these glasses and see. This was something which I begged the Lord for, something I never thought was possible.<br>When I grew older, I met a microsurgeon named Alphonso Ponce, who repaired my eyes and gave me sight. It was at that moment that I took upon myself an oath to chase a dream, to document my life, to remind others of the beauty in life.<br>For life is an adventure, a fainting glimpse of time. It is meant to be captured in our hearts, our minds, our images, videos, and memories. Every path we travel upon is a lesson, every step we take a reminder, and every moment we experience a blessing that defines our existence, that shows our growth and evolution.<br>As I stood upon this mountain top, grateful for this moment. In my heart, I knew &#8230;&#8230;&#8230; &#8220;that though I was blind, now I see.\u201d &#8211; John 9:25<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211; George Mercado www.evergladesphotographer.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a child, growing up in the inner city of New York. I dreamt of mountains, valleys, and creeks, of hidden waterfalls that few do venture to. I dreamt of seeing oceans, roaming through canyons, and hiking through barren forests. I dreamt of being free to explore every facet of my life, free of boundaries, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-journey"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>I was blind, now I see - Everglades Photographer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/evergladesphotographer.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/19\/i-was-blind-now-i-see\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I was blind, now I see - Everglades Photographer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As a child, growing up in the inner city of New York. 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