When I was five years old, we lived in a small county-seat town in the prairie land of the far northeast corner of North Dakota.
Three Distinct Memories
1) The snow plows on the county roads had augers on their front, instead of plows – to cut through super deep snow drifts, and throw it in an arc to the side of the road.
2) There was my preacher father in the Methodist Church basement kitchen, where on gas burners he was boiling down the winter’s antifreeze for our 1939 Chevy.
3) And upstairs, in that church, when one would look back, above the balcony, was a prominent stained glass window with a single huge overseeing eye. I’ve long remembered it clearly.
The Eye of God.
As an adult, I could easily harken back to that eye, which could see everything, and, of course, which would see everything! Never even blinking! I could imagine grown-ups being careful, even afraid.
But I was a child. They didn’t even have a Kindergarten back then. For me that eye was friendly. My preacher father was a gentle man – himself a loving father – for whom God was always a quiet presence.
Later, as an older child, I was told why we had left Colorado, something about the “doctors’ advice” for my father’s health. That was as much as I ever knew – I had no need to question; I somehow knew that beneficent “eye” would follow us. Then we would move again – to Iowa, Grade School, and beyond – far beyond. It was the way of things for Methodist preachers and their families back then.
Of course, as a young boy, and as an adolescent, I had my secrets – but never from that Eye, back there above the balcony of my Dad’s Church.
Today when I look it up on Google Maps, the church is a different shape, more modern. And I truly doubt the “eye” window survived the transitions. But that’s of no mind to me.
It continues to follow me, ever watching. I’m grateful that my Dad never made me afraid of it. He, now long gone, entrusted that eye, which, now many many decades later, still watches – over me.
For him.
Bill McDonald
July 3, 2026
1 thought on “The Eye of God”
Well said. The churches I grew up in didn’t have stained glass, but I know the eye. My father taught me to trust and not fear. Some guilt in there though.
For him. And for Him.