Was Blind, But Now I See … For Real

Was Blind, but Now I See, image by TheDigitalArtist/pixabay

2 Corinthians 5:7: “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

I Was Blind

One morning last March I opened my eyes, but I could not get them to focus on anything. Everything was blurry. To be honest, I had been having difficulty reading the teacher’s edition of my class textbooks–Why do they make those letters so small?–for some time. That morning was different, though. I couldn’t make out anything, except that I knew the furniture, the walls, the steps with which I was familiar. It was frightening.

Yes, I prayed, and then I called my NP. She wasn’t available, so I took an appointment with another NP in the office. He was very nice and sympathetic, ran a couple of tests and told me it didn’t appear to be glaucoma or retinal detachment (for which I was grateful). He said it was probably allergies and prescribed me some eye drops. They didn’t work. A week later, he prescribed something else. Still, no results. So he set up a call to an optometrist to point me to an ophthalmologist who might be able to discover what was happening with my eyes. I could not get an appointment for five months!

During those months I stopped driving because I couldn’t see on the road, I stopped reading because I couldn’t see the words, and I stopped baking because I couldn’t read the recipes. I couldn’t golf because it was impossible to track the ball. I couldn’t even see the outdoor temperature on the weather report. Time went on and I couldn’t discern the birds and flowers in my garden. All that time, the color started fading out of everything. I did keep taking pictures, mainly because I could point the camera at whatever I wanted to photograph and enlarge it until I could see it. Sad, huh? I sure thought so.

My big concern during all of this was that I would not be able to teach. How can an English teacher not read and write on a daily basis?

Finally, the day of my appointment came and the mystery was solved–advanced, fast-growing cataracts in both eyes. My eyesight was 20/300. I was referred to an ophthalmologist, and since they were sympathetic to my predicament (God bless them!), I got an appointment pretty quickly with the warning that their surgeries were already booked into the end of October and into November,

Before the appointment, Marty planned my birthday trip for me. I chose Niagara Falls. I wanted to go somewhere that was big enough for me to see it.

After the trip and back to reality, the ophthalmologist confirmed the cataracts and asked when I wanted to have the surgery. I was in the process of answering, “As soon as possible because I teach English and school starts next Thursday, and I don’t know how I can function in school. I realize that you are booked up …”

But Now

He interrupted, “Are you on any medications?”

“No.”

“Are you in good health?”

“Yes.”

“Could you do it Monday?”

“YES!”

Miraculously, someone canceled for the next Monday while we were there in the office!

“You’ll be able to see by Monday evening and you will be driving by Tuesday.”

There was God, right on time, turning an impossible situation around!

The tech checked my blood pressure and heart beat, and the arrangements were made. Monday … before school would start on Thursday.

Yes, I trust God, but there is a certain anxiety that still attaches to things like this that one has never done before. My biggest concern was the IV sedation. I hate needles, but I understood why this would be a necessary step. Not surprisingly, it took the tech (who was being trained and kept asking questions) three tries to get the IV needle into one of my uncooperative veins.

Finally, I was prepped and just waiting my turn to be wheeled in for the surgery, and I was quietly praying, and yes, nervous. Music was playing in the room–oldies. “House of the Rising Sun* came on. Now if you’re a 70s Christian like me, you may remember that we used to sing the lyrics to *Amazing Grace* to that tune. That’s what I did, I sang … and you know those lyrics …”I once was lost, but now I’m found, WAS BLIND, BUT NOW I SEE.”

Suddenly, peace washed away all my anxiety, and the rest was easy. When I was checked immediately after the surgery, my vision had gone from 20/300 to 20/30!

Thank You, Jesus! As always, You were right on time!

I See

Now here it is, a week and a half later, and I am teaching, driving, cooking, writing, and everything is pretty much back to normal. I still have to get the other eye done, but I am not concerned. I know where my help comes from.

In the midst of the months of legal blindness, I wondered if there was something God wanted me to learn through it all. There has always been a part of me that gets very impatient with others with health problems. Maybe I just needed to experience it to realize that a person might truly want to do something, yet be completely unable to do it, and there may not be any physical appearance that supports their claim. After all, I looked just the same, and yet. I was helpless.

Thankfully, God has changed that. He has promised, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 26:36). My lack of empathy has definitely made a one-eighty. When the Psalmist says, “The Lord gives sight to the blind” (Psalm 146:8), he means so much more than just physical sight.