God speaks.
He really does.
So when He says to go pray for a blind woman because He wants to heal her eyes, you best listen and follow His voice.
(Yep, that's what happened in Honduras.)
God does really speak. You will hear Christians claim this often, and it's because it is true. Sometimes, though, it is challenging to have faith in what you are hearing from Him and have faith you are distinguishing His voice from your own.
This has been a struggle of mine the last month. God has been speaking to me for a long time, but lately He has been speaking big things. Things that are frankly scary and hard to believe. But the Christian life is about faith and trust in God, and He asks us to put trust in what He is saying and take uncertain steps forward based on His voice alone. A leap of faith, a walk of risk, where being wrong and falling on your face is a real possibility.
Two weeks ago, He spoke boldly and asked me to take a step based on His voice. What happened I will never forget.
I was in a rural village near Talanga, Honduras going house to house to take a survey of single moms for a World Food Program feeding program. Our job was to see if there were any single moms or disabled children in the area in need of aid. We would also pray for people during these visits.
One of the families we were able to interview and spend time with in the village that day.
After really touching 4 people in the street by praying for greater joy and love in their lives, we ended up at another house, full of a large family. There were many daughters with their kids, but one of the older women in the corner caught my eye. She was sitting, her eyes very dark and unfocused. Her eyes were shaking; clearly there was some issue with them.
Her family told us she is nearly blind. In that moment, I heard clearly the voice of God say, "When it is time to pray for her, put your hands over her eyes and pray for her. I want to heal her eyes."
Woah. What do you do with that?
In that moment, you have two choices. Ignore that voice as insanity, or take the step in faith, believing God is going to show up.
The time came to pray; I knew I had to do it.
I went over to her and put my hands on her eyes and started to pray. My Spanish is only conversational, and limited in spiritual vocabulary, but prayer just poured out of me in Spanish. The Holy Spirit was empowering me in that moment. I kept praying for the fire and light of God to come into her eyes and cleanse them of illness, to heal her sight and continue to restore it.
As I was praying, I could feel her shaking eyes calming. I felt them stop shaking. When it was over, she opened her eyes and looked into mine. Her eyes were so much lighter – a gold flecked with brown from the dark, dark color they had been. She shook her head quite a bit and seemed very confused. We asked her how she felt, and although she did not respond, all her family members started saying, "Better, better! I can see that she is better!"
Despite their response, I was still unsure. I wanted to hear it from her. I've never seen a healing before in my life, and I have a practical and skeptical nature. Despite the physical signs and what God had said before the prayer, I wasn't sure what to believe.
Right after this, she began to break down sobbing. She collapsed into her chair, with dry-heaving sobs. She began to tell me her whole life story as I held her in my arms. She told me about her sadness having two of her sons die in past years. Also, she was heartbroken because her mother had died just that Sunday, 5 days previously. For a long time I held her as she cried in my arms, and I hummed to her trying to comfort her. She kept repeating one thing over and over – she repeatedly said that she hadn't had any will to live, but now had her hope restored and wanted to live.
When it was time for us to leave, she was grasping at me, eagerly trying to tell me so many things. She told me how she was never going to forget what we said and did. She said she was so grateful to God to have the will to live again, and she was so glad she had hope again.
Then she said a few times, "I can see better. I can see the people across the room."
And then I was sure. I knew that God had really done when He'd said.
This woman, whose name I never knew, also told me she would continue to pray for blessings for us and thank God for us. I will continue to do the same for her.
After we left, I was still in shock. Did that really happen? Did God just heal a blind woman?!
Despite every practical doubt I had, I couldn't deny it. I felt and saw a physical difference in her eyes. Her family was excited and overjoyed by what they knew was healing. And she herself was overcome and told us she could see better.
God healed a blind woman in a poor village in Honduras.
I will never forget that experience as long as I live. God healed a blind woman.
The experience made me realize 3 things:
1) God can and does heal. For real. Praise The Lord!
2) God's preoccupied with our hearts, not our bodies. Although he healed her eyes, He did it for a greater purpose to give her hope and a desire to live. He renewed her hope and began to heal her heart from the deep grief she is experiencing.
3) I can trust God's voice, even when what He says is against all logic. He told me ahead of time He was going to heal that woman. I have never heard Him say anything like that before, and He actually did it! How incredible is my God!
(On another healing note, my team leader's mom was diagnosed with kidney cancer in Jan. We were pretty heartbroken, and prayed for her hardcore. And in Feb when they went to do more tests, the cancer was gone! God is really moving in healings through our squad!)
Challenge to you: Do you believe this? I know what I'm claiming may seem impossible, but guess what, it happened. I hope this account pushed you today to challenge your own beliefs on what is possible. It is not easy for me to share this experience over a blog, but I know God let me see this incredible miracle so I can share His love, His faithfulness, and His power with others. He really is who He says He is. And He really wants to share His love and his glory with us.
If you are reading this blog, it is because He wants to invite you into a greater experience and view of His character and glory. You reading this blog is one of the ways He is pursuing your heart, asking you to pay attention to Him and let in the possibility of faith in Him. It's a pretty grand invitation – are you going to ignore it? This kind of invitation demands a response.
