He Opened My Eyes
Bam!
My eye seemed to explode into waves of pain as I crumpled to the floor.
I’d only turned my head for a moment to look at my racquetball opponent, Phil. But meanwhile, he had hit the ball, and it slammed into my left eye, breaking my glasses, cutting my eyebrow, and knocking me off my feet with the unexpected force.
The owner of the club looked at my injury. “You should get a couple of stitches,” he advised. Reluctantly, I went to the ER, where a doctor assessed, “Two stitches.” Someone came in with a sewing kit.
Afterward, with the outside of my eye clean and ready for a bandage, I asked, “When will I be able to see again?”
The physician assistant froze. “What do you mean?”
“Open your eye.” I did. No one had asked me to do that previously. They didn’t think to because they could see the obvious problem. I thought somehow blood from the cut had covered the outside of my eyeball, making it impossible for me to see. If you just wash it out, I’ll be fine.
“Stay right here,” the PA said. “Don’t go anywhere. Don’t move.”
“Okay.”
The ophthalmologist joined the Worry Club that the PA chartered on my behalf. My cheery demeanor could easily be mistaken as a mask for panic. But I was not in shock because I simply didn’t know the seriousness of my injury. Dr. Shaw did.
“What do you see?”
Not much. “I can tell if the lights are on or off.”
“Open your eye, slowly.” Presumably she gave that direction to avoid further trauma to my eye. The light I detected from the ceiling suddenly became gray. I asked what she did. “I blocked the light. Do you know how I did that?”
I had no clue. “Did you stand in front of me?” She said nothing. “Did you turn off the light?”
“Neither. I moved my hand in front of your face.”
I had no sense of how near or far her hand had been in proximity to my face. I couldn’t tell how big her hand was or how many fingers she held up or whether her hand was balled up in a fist or her palm was open. I couldn’t see anything.
“Look up. No, no. Don’t move your head. Just your eyes.”
No change.
“Look down.”
Still the same.
“Left.” I complied. “Now right.” I shook my head.
She already knew. “You have a hyphema.” I must have looked puzzled. “The blood isn’t on the outside. It’s inside.”
That doesn’t sound good.
Had the accident happened two weeks earlier, I don’t know what would have been done for me. Fortunately, Dr. Shaw had moved to our little town, giving us something we didn’t have before—an ophthalmologist who could diagnose a hyphema.
“A hyphema is blood inside the anterior chamber of the eye, the space between the cornea and the iris. The blood is covering everything—the iris and the pupil. The white part of your eye is all red. That blood in the eye chamber is blocking your vision completely.”
Such an injury is typically painful. My eye ached, but the pain didn’t leave me in agony. I remained calm throughout her examination. That may have also contributed to her decision to keep me overnight for observation.
Before an aid took me upstairs, Dr. Shaw gave the good news and the bad news.
“There’s nothing I can do. There’s no surgery or medication.”
I signed some forms and climbed off the table into the waiting wheelchair. “We’ll keep you sitting up tonight and I’ll see you in the morning.”
You’ll see me, but will I see you? I thought.
“The blood may drain a bit, but you still won’t be able to see.” Then she added, “You’ll be legally blind.”
Yeah, but I still have my right eye. I’ll manage.
“There’s a 70 percent chance you’ll develop glaucoma in the other eye. If the blood in the left eye doesn’t drain, over time the intraocular pressure could cause glaucoma.”
I learned later that the injury to my left eye might produce trauma in my good eye that would result in irreversible optic nerve damage in both eyes.
She might as well have told me, “Get a dog and learn braille. You’ll need both.”
I thought that, but quickly dismissed it. “We prayed. God will come through.”
Anyone could summarize the extent of my friend Phil’s and my knowledge of God in less than one minute: “Two Testaments. Four gospels. Some incredible stories. An apple. A flood. A guy swallowed by a whale. Two tablets with Ten Commandments that we seemed unable to keep. Jesus. Born to Mary, a virgin. Crucified. Dead. Buried. Rose from the dead on a Sunday. Our sins were forgiven.”
We were too young in the faith not to believe God still works miracles. And I couldn’t comprehend how much I needed one. So we just believed. Along with others.
Our pastor, Allen, and assistant pastor, Carl, came to the hospital. They prayed. They asked God to do the impossible. I believed anything was possible.
Although I’d grown up in church, I’d only come to faith in Jesus within the past year. Ordained as a deacon in a mainline denominational church, I heard the gospel. I could recite the Apostle’s Creed, but I had no relationship with Jesus. Instead, I tried to keep God’s rules, because if I didn’t, well, there’d be hell to pay.
I did bad things for so many years, and I rarely did what I knew I should do. But no matter how hard I tried, nothing ever changed. I was in an impossible situation, and I needed a miracle.
That miracle came when I surrendered my life to God.
I can’t fix me. I’m too broken, I’d prayed. I’d asked God to help me because I couldn’t help myself.
Now, unable to see, I knew I once again faced an impossible situation. But that night one thing was different—I had hope. “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1 NLT).
I’ll just trust God. There’s nothing else I can do.
The elders in our church anointed me with oil. They prayed. Nothing changed.
Upstairs, alone in a brightly lit room, I could see with only one eye. I sat propped up in the bed. Rather than being depressed or worrying about what my life would be like as a thirty-one-year-old blind man, I peeked. I lifted the bandage that covered my left eye. Nothing. Not yet.
The Bible talks about the gift of faith. It’s something extra, something above and beyond what all of us are given—a measure of faith. God doesn’t give it because we want it; He bestows it because we need it, when we need it.
Midnight had passed, and I couldn’t sleep. I was too excited. I expected to see. That’s why I kept peeking from beneath the bandage. That’s why I describe the initial answer to my prayer as a gift of faith. Years of diligent study did not produce that faith. Faithful attendance and service didn’t generate it. Sacrificial giving didn’t purchase it. Years of prayer didn’t build up my faith to supernatural proportions. I believed. Like a child, I trusted my Dad. I knew He loved me. I believed He wanted me to see again. I didn’t doubt. Not because I possessed faith greater than other people, but because I believed just enough.
Moreover, it wasn’t what I believed but who I trusted that made the difference. I believed God would keep His promise. “Your Father knows the things you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8 NCV)! I peeked. Still no change. Nevertheless, I’d ask, just to make sure. “You don’t get what you want because you don’t ask God for it” (James 4:2 PHILLIPS).
God, please. I lifted the bandage. It was still night. “Everything good comes from God” (James 1:17 ERV). I believed God would do what I asked Him to do because He loved me, not because I’d been a good boy.
I peeked a few more times. Not because I wanted proof. I had that. But because I’d been assured. I prayed once more before I drifted off into a blissful sleep. Thank you.
What might have happened if I hadn’t prayed? What if others hadn’t prayed? My pastors? The church elders? It’s not easy to speculate about what doesn’t happen because a miracle does. All I know is that I was blind and now I see. I went to bed unable to distinguish anything except whether a light was on, and that only so long as no one played a trick on me and blocked the light from my eyes.
The next morning, Dr. Shaw’s exam room was dark. My wife handed me my prescription sunglasses. Dr. Shaw lifted the bandage away from my injured eye. She covered my good eye.
“Take your time and try to focus. Tell me if you can see anything.”
I smiled. I saw my wife, Rosemary.
“Can you read anything on the chart?”
I read the jumbled letters, line after line, until I got to DEFPOTEC, and kept reading. 20/15. 20/12. 20/10. There was nothing else to read. But the doctor had more to say.
I’d read the chart. God answered my prayer and the prayers of others. He gave me a miracle. But she wasn’t convinced.
“Just remember, there’s still a 70 percent chance of glaucoma in the other eye.”
“Doctor, with all due respect,” and I meant that, “Jesus didn’t heal me now so I could get glaucoma later.”
A subsequent exam, and others in the following years, confirmed God’s goodness. It’s been more than thirty-three years since that accident. There’s no sign of any problem. In fact, we eventually learned why my eyesight actually improved.
Examined a week later for new glasses—because things didn’t look right wearing my sunglasses—an optometrist listened to my story and confirmed my better eyesight. The force of the racquetball flattened my cornea, in much the way that Lasik surgery improves vision.
Curious why God stopped at 20/10, I prayed again. You know I’ve hated wearing glasses since I was in grade school. Why didn’t you fix my eyes so I don’t have to wear glasses at all? I waited a moment, then felt His whisper.
“You’d forget.”
I understood. I remembered how Jacob limped after he wrestled with God. I doubt he forgot. I never have. Every time I clean my glasses, I remember that I was blind, but now I see.