I remember wanting glasses so badly when I was younger. I thought they looked cool and, as we all learned from “Grease,” glasses, “make ya look smahteh” (make you look smarter).
In 5th grade, guess what? I got them!
At a month away from 23 years old, my eyes are still getting progressively worse, plus a double astigmatism, and acute deterioration of my left retina…so I’ve started praying for God to heal my eyes, because it’s sort of unusual and scary that they haven’t stabilized at all yet.
But, I haven’t had my eyes healed. In fact, last month in Tanzania, my glasses turned into this:
It happened while we were at our Pastor’s house, so I had to walk back to the guest house basically blind.
Halfway back, I just stopped and looked around at the blurry world, only able to make out distinctions in the colors around me between the red dirt, green grass, dark fences, and neutral colored buildings; and I cried.
For the first time in my life that I can remember, I realized what the world would actually look like if I had to see it all with my natural eyes – and I felt my flesh and my spirit fighting within me, arguing between self-pity over the affliction of ever-decreasing eyesight and rejoicing that I’ve been provided with corrective lenses and a brilliant optometrist for over a decade.
With broken glasses, I was forced to rely on my contacts (which the World Race website strongly recommends against), knowing that my sensitive eyes begin to get extremely painful after more than 9 hours with them in.
After about 5 days, my eyes started to tear up immediately when I would try to put in my contacts in the morning, and when it came time to travel to Zanzibar for our 2 ½ day mini-vacation, I had to make the decision to basically travel blind because my eyes were rejecting my contacts altogether.
And I prayed. I even posted a facebook status asking my friends and family to pray for my eyes, because they hurt – badly – and I had no idea how I was going to repair or replace my glasses, which I’m basically dependent on in this dry/dusty African climate.
Jesus says that if we believe we have received whatever we ask in His name, we have already received it…but I was still waking up every morning to a blurry, indefinable world around me.
When we got to Rwanda, we asked our contact if he knew of an optometrist that I could see who could make new glasses for me. I don’t have my prescription with me, so I had prepared to ask my parents to fund an eye-exam and new glasses.
I had also prepared myself for the very real chance that I wouldn’t be able to have new glasses made in the 18 days of ministry that we have in this country.
My faith was very small and my hope was dwindling, but our contact took us to an optometrist on our very first day here.
I just had to go to the bank to withdraw money to be able to pay her. I went to several banks and ATMs here in the land of a thousand hills, they all rejected my card. Exhausted still from 50ish hours of travel and then hiking all over a new city, I finally learned that I can’t withdraw money from my account in Rwanda without my passport, which I didn’t have anywhere near me.
We went to the mall, and I found a bank with a giant MasterCard logo hanging outside – the first time I‘d seen “MasterCard” anywhere in Kigali, and my heart raced as I ran in and explained that I just needed money to pay the doctor so I could see! No dice, though, they needed my passport, too.
My hope grew even smaller, and on my way out of the mall I found my hopeless self crying.
Jesus sent us out into the world to heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons – to restore sight to the blind!
Jesus, why aren’t you restoring my sight?!
I’m desperate, I need you, nothing I’m trying in the natural world is giving me my sight back!
I’m desperate, I need you, nothing I’m trying in the natural world is giving me my sight back!
As I stood in the mall waiting for my team leader to finish taking care of team-leadery things, I looked up and right in front of me, saw this:
At all times, having all that you need…
Papa spoke to me then and asked me what I needed that I didn’t have. I had given my eyes enough of a break during travel that I was able to comfortably wear contacts for a few hours out of the day, and I was wearing them then. At that moment, I could see, and I didn’t NEED anything. I just didn’t trust that in the future I would be in the same position.
We left the mall and went to the doctor, just to see what my options would be, even though I had no money to give her at all.
When we got there, the doctor suggested something I hadn‘t even thought of. She helped me pick out a pair of frames that my lenses from my old glasses would fit in perfectly, and said she could have them done within 2 hours! No exam needed, and the frames plus labor would cost $30 USD total, which she was willing to take when I returned to pick them up.
I went from hopeless to new glasses promised to me within 2 hours in a matter of minutes!
But we were unable to make it back to the optometrist that night, and when I tried to call the office to tell them we wouldn’t make it, the number I had didn‘t go through.
The smallest twinge of hopelessness began to creep back up in me, and God had to ask me again, “what do you not have right now that you need?”
Nothing, Papa. I have absolutely everything I need in this moment.
We wouldn’t be able to go back to the office until after ministry the next morning, and my heart began to settle in that, although I really just wanted those glasses in my hands so the hassle would be over and done with.
Well, ministry the next morning was a few hours of evangelism where I met a mother and two daughters, and God SPOKE through me.
If you’ve read my 4-part blog on evangelism, you know that I didn’t know at all how much scripture was in my head until I began evangelizing – this was one of those times that I had to sit back afterwards and ask God, “HOW did all of that come out of my mouth??” because the Holy Spirit brought so many passages of scripture to my mind for me to give these women to encourage them!
All 3 women had the eyes of their hearts opened and accepted Christ as their Savior, and then repeated back to me the different scriptures that had spoken Truth and Love to them in a way that helped them understand the love of Christ for the first time.
Then, the youngest daughter told us she had a problem with…you guessed it…her EYES. She said she had a lot of pain in them, that everything was blurry, and that she was constantly tearing up, and she asked us to pray for healing for her.
Really, Jesus? Really? You want me to heal this woman’s eyes? You’re not healing mine, so how do I pray with confidence that you’re going to heal hers?
But He did.
After we left her house, she kept walking with us for a little while, putting her hand over one eye and then the other, exclaiming, “it’s finished! It’s finished!” meaning she had been completely healed.
The next day, my teammate who had prayed for her with me saw her again, and she ran up to her squealing, smiling, and telling everyone around her what had happened when we had prayed for her the day before.
The Lord tells us His ways are not our ways, and that our thoughts are not His thoughts, and right now I feel like the Lord’s ways are delightfully funny.
Despite my doubt, despite my hopelessness, despite my worry and my distrust; God gave me compassion in the most tangible way imaginable – and when I was praying for that woman, I knew that I had physically felt for myself the pain that I was praying off of her. I had prayed for it to be lifted off of myself, and I hadn’t received healing, but I could battle for her in a way that no one else on earth could have at that time.
And then the eyes of my heart were opened, I could see that He had brought me through that and left me in it FOR HER…
and then I went to pick up my new glasses.
Two women had their sight restored that day, both our natural eyes and the eyes of our hearts.
Praise the Lord Jesus – or, as they say in Swahili, my new favorite language – Bwana Yesu Asifiwe.
