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When one of my occasional visual migraines begins with a blind spot, I
often wonder, “What if this one doesn’t go away?” But within
a few minutes they usually transform into a jagged kaleidoscope of flickering
colors, migrate to the periphery, and disappear within a half hour, sometimes
leaving a mild headache or cramping in my back, but no longer anything
debilitating, now that I’m older.
But the blind spot in November 2004 did not transform, migrate, or disappear—not
in an hour or a day. Furthermore, it was only in one eye. Something was
very wrong!
My mind splattered to macular degeneration, total blindness, brain tumors.
I had no idea.
How could that be? I had so much more to do for God. On the other hand,
he hadn’t given me anything to write lately. Neta’s Yada
Yada novels were going wild, but I hadn’t landed a contract in
a year and a half. Maybe he didn’t need me after all. But the possibility
that I might spend the rest of my life as a blind invalid … whoa,
I was too old to adjust. I did not want to learn to serve him in some
new horribly hard way.
My eye doctor was able to give me some reassurance. It was definitely
not macular degeneration, but a couple weeks later, after some other tests,
he confirmed I had a macular hole, an unavoidable consequence of aging
for a small percentage of the population. However, there was a procedure
for treating it with good chances of restoring most if not all of my vision.
That was good news, since by then, I was legally blind in that eye. Even
better news was the fact that macular holes sometimes healed spontaneously,
and it wouldn’t hurt to wait a few weeks to see if that might happen
to me.
For six weeks I prayed and prepared for the surgery if that was the way
the Lord was going to answer my prayer. It’s tough being blind in
one eye, especially knowing that the same malady could show up in the
other eye. But, given the hopeful prognosis, it was relatively easy to
pray “with faith believing.” And so I prayed and believed, and
believed and prayed.
Show
me your power, God
In the last year or so, I had hungered for two things from
God. One is another important Kingdom writing assignment. Neta and I have
had these in the past and consider them a great privilege. But at this
point I didn’t even have a contract to earn my bread. Secondly, I
had been asking God to teach me what it means to ask him for his supernatural
intervention in the way the New Testament seems to urge. I wanedt to see
an unequivocal, undeniable physical miracle, not to my benefit or as the
result of my prayers but just to learn, to strengthen my faith. I wanted
to know why the Bible so often urges such crazy faith when we see so few
results that most Christians hesitate to ask.
I began thinking God was going to use my eye problem to answer that request.
My faith—no, my expectancy, which may be part of faith, but I’m
not sure it is the same—soared. God was going to work. He was going
to give me a testimony!
My first eye surgery, during which I was awake and marveled at what I
saw from the inside out, went well. God protected me from the two main
risks: hemorrhage and infection. People commiserated with my recovery
assignment of remaining face down for three weeks, but, other than the
fact that I had the flu during part of the time, it was a manageable discipline,
something in which I even took an I-can-do-it pride.
And then, when I thought the ordeal was over, things started to go wrong.
And they kept on going wrong and getting worse. Retinal tears. Retinal
detachment. More tears. More detachment. I felt so battered by bad news
on top of more bad news, that I couldn’t understand what God was
doing. I mean, I know we all must go through trials, and they produce
patience and other good things, but he wasn’t bringing me through.
This was no Outward Bound adventure; I was going down for the third time.
What I didn’t realize is that adventuresome forays exercise your
strengths, and that’s good. But a real trial takes you way beyond
your own strength until you cannot help but sing with Bebo Norman, “For
I am nothing, I am nothing without you.” Only God knows what will
take you over that edge. It might be physical, emotional, relational,
or financial, but I’m convinced it’s out there somewhere for
everyone. And perhaps the Lord has to let some of us go over the edge
more than once.
I thought I was trusting God. I believed I had examined myself and had
not found any unrepented sin. I thought God had my attention, and I was
not aware of any major lesson I was resisting, so why hadn’t he brought
me through that first surgery triumphantly so I could give him the honor
and glory and be on my way? That this hadn’t happen, and didn’t
happen, and still didn’t happen beat me down to where I began to
feel God had forsaken me, forgotten me, and didn’t need me anymore.
Are
you even there, God?
But since the Bible affirms that God never forgets or forsakes
us, I began to fear something else must be wrong. Either the Bible isn’t
telling it straight, or—I began to titter on the abyss of unbelief—maybe
there’s no response because there is no God! That thought terrified
me. If there’s no God, there’s no meaning! Suddenly, something
became more important to me than my sight. By this time, I’d realized
sight is hugely important. I have a completely new appreciation for the
struggles of the sightless, and though I have not had many other surgeries,
I think there is a reason why the eye is called the window to the soul—operating
on it, cutting into it, sucking part out of it, burning little “rivets”
into its wall with laser beams comes very close to messing with one’s
psyche, far more traumatic than what happened to me later when a surgeon
had to cut into my neck to take out my cancerous thyroid. But suddenly,
at the prospect of there being no God, something became far more important
to me than my eye sight: I wanted to be aware of Jesus’ presence.
Then,
in shocked realization as I confessed that fact, I saw that my trial was
not meaningless. At least a portion of God’s purpose in allowing
the trial was to teach me something I might not have learned any other
way. He wanted me to become aware that Jesus’ presence was
more important to me than regaining my vision. And in realizing that,
I knew God was there. He existed as proved by his caring enough to teach
me a lesson.
It’s probably a good exercise for us to affirm, “Jesus means
more to me than life itself” or make similar declarations, but I
now wonder how many of us have any idea what we’ve said in making
such a statement. Or are we more like Peter who boasted he would never
forsake Jesus … before he faced the trial?
I’m
no hero, but …
Neta and I have written a lot about Christian martyrs, and
we’ve grown to love and admire them. Having been someone who often
waded into “dangerous” situations, I sometimes fancied that
if God led me through a martyr’s trial, I, too, could remain faithful
to the end. Recalling the old hymn, “He giveth more grace when the
burden grows greater,” I imagined that was the way the heroes of
the faith rode the crest of their trials, and perhaps some did. But somehow
I had missed the second verse: “When we have exhausted our store
of endurance / When our strength has failed ere the day is half done /
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources / Our father’s full
giving is only begun.” My trial was indeed less than half over, and
I had already reached the end of my spiritual resources.
I could barely declare, “I believe,” before crying out, “help
my unbelief,” and if it were not for the prayers of my brothers and
sisters, I would not have made it through. They believed on my behalf.
They held up my arms when I had no strength.
In the end, I was humbled to realize that I am no Christian hero …
but I also am now sort of a veteran. I have been through the battle even
if I did not comport myself with the strength of faith I fancied I had.
As the Scriptures say: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to
the humble. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he
will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. …
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (Jas.
4:6-10). It has been a time for humbling.
Mind
trips
As my troubles increased, I began to wonder whether my desire
to see a miracle and my request for an important Kingdom writing project
had attracted Satan’s personal opposition. Rather than continue to
seek those gifts, I shrank back. “If they are going to cost me this
much, forget ’em. Just leave me in peace in some spiritual backwater.
Let someone else do the important writing. And I’ll be glad to wait
’til heaven to learn about miracles.”
I am embarrassed by such cowardice and even the grandiosity that imagines
my writing or my spiritual education is so important that Satan would
bother to target me. But then I flip-flopped. Important or not, I believe
God’s saints are immortal until their work for him is done. I’ve
seen the truth of that in the lives of too many Christian heroes. But
I was not feeling very immortal. If God was not bothering to give me a
job or heal my eye, why should I expect him to forestall any complications
with my leaky heart valve? Would I be left with nothing but doctors to
heal me? “Give me a job, God,” I prayed, “so I will know
you will preserve me to finish it.”
While I had earlier searched my heart for any unrepented sin, there was
another issue that Satan, the great accuser, taunted me with from time
to time. Our church recently underwent a painful crisis, one that came
to light shortly before my initial blind spot in November. I was one of
the elders and took a strong stand concerning action I believed was pastorally
and biblically required. I did not act alone or without counsel but submitted
my insights and perspectives for testing to mature leaders. Still, it
was perhaps the hardest church crisis I have ever been through, and I’ve
seen several.
The line Satan whispered in my ear from time to time was: “You were
wrong! You were totally and entirely and destructively wrong, and now
God is chastising you. How else can you explain the timing? Your eye problems
started just after you began speaking out in the church. If only you had
repented quickly and shut up, this would all be over, but your stubbornness
required God to up the ante! When will you yield?”
While I knew Satan was the great accuser, these words caused me to ask
whether I’d been fooling myself. Had self-righteousness blinded me?
I could have kept quiet about the church problems, not rocked the boat
and called silence “love.” So even though I believed I had acted
in obedience to God’s Word and the truth, I again submitted my actions
to the Lord and tested them with others. Undoubtedly, I could have conducted
myself with more grace and wisdom, and I truly regret any unnecessary
hurt or pain. But God showed me that acknowledging inadequacies is different
than being plowed under by Satan’s condemnation. And the Apostle
John’s words were reassuring: “Dear children, let us not love
with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we
know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in
his presence whenever our hearts condemn us” (1 Jn. 3:18-20).
“Cut
off from the land of the living”
When I had both of my eyes patched for five days while remaining
as quiet as possible, I began to feel more and more cut off from the rest
of the world, as though I was in one room while everything else was happening
in an adjacent room, and the door between was slowly closing. Eerie! Helpless!
I longed for the connection achieved by the mere touch of my wife’s
hand or foot—anything to know someone was there.
This sense of isolation, reminiscent of Isa. 53 prophesying that Jesus
would be “cut off from the land of the living,” was exactly
where Satan worked his mind games of confusion and doubt. But I found
weapons with which to fight. The encouragement of Scripture, especially
the Psalms, which often show triumph following despair. And praise music
that glorifies God so boldly that Satan flees. And prayer.
I believed enough to know that there was no one else to which I could
turn but Jesus, who healed so many sightless people (why not me?), and
yet my unbelief and doubts frightened me. My faith was so thin. Those
were the times when I didn’t even know what to pray. My human speech
was so inadequate that I asked the Holy Spirit to pray for me as I prayed
in some unknown tongue. Rom. 8:26-27
promises: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we
ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans
that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind
of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance
with God’s will.”
“But
if not …”
One Sunday we went to hear our friend, Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil,
preach on the Three Hebrew Children thrown into the fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar.
When threatened with painful death if they would not bow down to the idol,
they declared their confidence that God could deliver them—a brave
and powerful testimony. But Dr. Brenda’s message focused on their
caveat: “But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will
not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”
They were fully prepared for how they would proceed even if God did not
do what they believed he could do and undoubtedly desperately prayed he
would do. She emphasized how we need to affirm a “but-if-not”
attitude. She pointed out how this preparation is not faithless
but a response that honors God’s sovereignty to be God all by himself
and do what he thinks best.
I felt challenged to look to the future. Could I approach it with a “but-if-not”
peace, or was I still betting so much on God rescuing me that I would
not be able to tolerate any other answer?
God’s
protection
I wasn’t shy in asking the brothers in my men’s
Bible study for prayer. One of them, Gary Baker, reminded me of the promise
in 1 Cor. 10:13: “No temptation has overtaken you except such as
is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to
be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also
make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
I had usually seen this verse in terms of temptation to sin, and that
certainly applies. But the Greek word translated temptation can
also be translated test or trial, and it is the same word
that appears in the Lord’s Prayer: “Lead us not into temptation.”
The Revised Standard Version actually says, “Do not bring
us to the time of trial.”
While temptation to overt sin was not so apparent in my circumstance (though
doubt certainly saddens God), the obvious trial or test I was undergoing
gave new meaning to these verses. (1) What I was going through was common
to human experience, not that everyone’s vision is threatened, but
most people face something in life that takes them to the edge. (2) Like
Job, even though Satan may be administering the test, God won’t let
Satan go beyond what we can endure—that’s a universal promise
to all believers. (3) I will be able to make it through if I keep seeking
his path. (4) It is appropriate to pray (as in the Lord’s Prayer)
for relief from the test and that no new test comes.
James 1:13-17 says, “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is
tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt
anyone.… Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from
the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
Again, the Greek word does not distinguish between what we typically understand
as testing and temptation. But the passage clearly says
God is not the one who administers it. However, in the Book of Job, we
see that God sometimes gives Satan permission to test the saints …
but only within the limits noted in 1 Cor. 10:13. He will not allow more
than we can stand. And where is that limit? I thought it was long ago.
We all do. But it was not, and I did not quit trusting him … at least
not for long. I do not know what the future holds or how I’ll manage
it, but now I know more fully the one who holds my future.
Why does God allow Satan to test us? According to James 1:2-4, one reason
is to strengthen us and cause us to rely more deeply on him. Why, then,
would Satan cooperate in a process that can produce stronger saints? Because
he gambles that some of us will fail. And sometimes we do. If a trial
does not draw us closer to God, it can drive us into despair or bitterness
and render us useless until Jesus comes and lifts us up again. This may
be why in Luke 22:31-32, Jesus said to Peter, “Simon, Simon, Satan
has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that
your faith may not fail.” In fact, Peter did fail and denied Jesus,
but there was also forgiveness, so Jesus could say, “And when you
have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
Dreading
the next boot fall
I know many people have endured far worse than I have experienced
and often more valiantly, but enough terrible things had happened while
I had been praying and hoping for better, that I felt like I was experiencing
post traumatic stress, fearing that at any moment an even more frightful
“boot” would fall. Prayer, praise songs, and Scripture beat
back the devil for only a few hours at a time before a cloud of dread
would envelop me again.
Then one evening while I was still legally blind in one eye, had just
been diagnosis with cancer, and didn’t know whether my heart rhythms
were stable—a frightening array of circumstances—the Lord spoke
to me and said, “The nightmare is over.” Obviously, I longed
to hear that, but was it just wishful thinking? The first test of any
prophetic word is whether it comes true. In this case, I experienced an
immediate release from the dread I’d been under, but would it return
the next day? And how would I feel if more circumstances “went south”
as they seemed to repeatedly do earlier?
I don’t know how I might have weathered a continued attack, because
the circumstances did start to change. It was as clear a fulfillment of
1 Cor. 10:13 (“He will not allow you to be tempted
beyond what you can bear”) as if God had said, “That’s
enough, Satan! Let him up.” My heart rhythms proved stable, my heart
tested stronger than the year before. The cancer was removed without pain,
and the doctor declared me “cured.” And I got my contact lens.
True, my vision in my left eye remains quite inferior what it was, but
the doctors are still working on improving it. Over a month has passed
since the Lord gave me that word, and it’s still true: “The
nightmare is over!”
“And
surely I am with you always”
For someone accustomed to going to the doctor once or twice
a year, my 40-plus trips this year alone were overwhelming. However, recently
I was at my daughter’s church in Champaign,
Illinois, and as I approached the communion
table, I was praying, “Yes, Jesus, it is more important to me that
I am aware of your presence than that I can see or that I can write or
that I am right. Thank you for showing me this truth, and for coming to
me in my distress.” Just then I reached out for the bread and wine,
and recalled Jesus’ words, “This is my body broken for you …
This is my blood shed for you.” He was right there in my hands, in
my mouth—as close as anything could be, just as he had promised:
“Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt.
28:20).
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Chronology
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Mid-November,
2004, I noticed the sight in my left eye was suddenly deteriorating.
My vision was down to 20/60, and Dr. Blair thought I had a macular
hole (a hole in the very center of one’s vision torn by shrinking
vitreous in the eye).
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Two
weeks later, my vision was 20/200 (legally blind) and the macular
hole was confirmed at “stage 2.” However, because macular holes sometimes
spontaneously heal, and treatment was not urgent, he postponed surgery
for six weeks.
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January
14, I had a one and a half hour operation to remove some of the vitreous
and insert a gas bubble with instructions to remain face down, 24/7,
for three weeks while the buoyant gas bubble held the macula in place
for healing.
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Three
weeks later, tests showed that my hole had physically healed and the
area was flat, but I still had a fairly serious blind spot and was
only able to see 20/200—not much better than before surgery.
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By
March 2 (six weeks out), my vision had improved to 20/70, but I still
had two little blind spots, a very small one at the point of focus
and a second a degree to the right. My bubble continued to shrink,
and finally disappeared March 9.
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At
my April 5 appointment I tested at 20/40 (still with the blind spots),
and expected to be “released” to get some new glasses and go from
there. However, after asking Dr. Blair about some faint lines around
my vision (as though I were wearing a pair of rimless glasses), he
looked more closely and found two small retinal tears with minor detachment
behind them, confirmed by ultrasound.
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He
immediately performed a cryoprobe on the tears from the outside of
the eyeball, freezing them with a super cooled instrument to seal
them. He then extracted more vitreous (requiring four painful tries)
and injected a new bubble to hold the retina in place while I remained
on my side for three to five days.
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The
next day, things looked pretty good, but by Friday, he found two more
small tears and more detachment. At that point he recommended I come
in on Saturday for emergency surgery.
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April
9, I had another vitrectomy with an implanted scleral buckle, a silicon
band placed around the eyeball to reduce its diameter and stop any
more tears from the little membranes tugging at the retina around
periphery of the eye.
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During
the four and a half hour surgery (I was conscious), there was so much
trauma to my lens, that it clouded over with an “instant cataract,”
requiring its removal. Afterwards, I had to remain face down for three
days.
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Three
days later, though my eye looked like hamburger, and I could barely
see my hand in front of my face, Dr. Blair thought my eye was doing
well, considering.
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During
the night of April 15, I awoke seeing flashes. Flashes often announce
retinal tears, and because I had lost the upper left quadrant of my
peripheral vision (also a common symptom of serious detachment), I
was terrified, and called Dr. Blair first thing in the morning. He
told me to come right in and confirmed more retinal detachment by
ultrasound. However, because everything was so cloudy he couldn’t
see any new tears and thought that perhaps there had been additional
leakage through some of the earlier tears nor could the eye sustain
any more surgery right then. He prescribed patches on both eyes and
as little movement as possible, i.e., total bed rest.
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April
18, he was able to see into my eye enough to give me 142 extremely
painful shots of laser to try and pin down the retina. He wanted me
to continue with dual patches and complete immobility for a couple
more days.
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April
20, Dr. Blair said things looked stable—no new tears, no more detachment
(confirmed by ultrasound), but he wanted to keep a close watch on
me and probably reinforce the retina with more laser “rivets” later.
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April
28, I went to see Dr. Bogacz, my primary doctor, feeling terrible—weak-kneed,
shaky, high blood pressure and pulse, and notable heart beat. (Though
I was months past when I should have seen Dr. Waligora, my cardiologist,
who is keeping a watch on my mitral valve prolapse, I was unable to
schedule an appointment with him.) Was something going wrong with
my heart? However, by the time Dr. Bogacz checked me, my bp was down
to 124/70, and I was already feeling better. She found nothing alarming
and assured me that my weakness and other symptoms were entirely understandable
given the trauma I’d been through. She said it typically takes two
days to recover from every day down. I’d been “down” over two weeks
(and three more earlier) … plus all the stress and surgeries.
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A
peripheral vision test confirmed my loss of vision in the upper, left
quadrant. Dr. Blair thinks it is probably the result of the scleral
buckle since no further detachment is detectable. It is probably permanent.
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May
16, Dr. Blair gave me 53 more laser shots (bringing the total to 195).
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My
lens was not the only thing traumatized by all the mucking around
in my eye; my cornea suffered as well. There were posterior wrinkles,
clouding, and thickening. Consequently, Dr. Blair did not think I
was a good candidate for a lens implant, at least not now. A contact
would be better, but even that needed to wait for several weeks for
the cornea to heal enough to be fitted for a contact.
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May
31. My regular annual physical with Dr. Bogacz looked good until she
found a lump on my thyroid. After an uptake and scan, an ultrasound,
and finally, a fine needle biopsy on June 21, I was diagnosed with
papillary carcinoma, the Big “C.” However, this thyroid cancer is
one of the slowest spreading and most easily treatable.
-
June
22, I picked up my contact lens to replace my natural lens lost during
eye surgery ten weeks prior. With it I tested at 20/40. In practical
terms, I could read 14 pt. type with some difficulty (still have to
dodge the two little blind spots) and the letters on a stop sign at
about 200 ft.
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June
23, I had an echo and a stress echo with Dr. Waligora. Surprisingly,
I did better than last year, something he couldn’t explain. Also,
my total cholesterol was down to 150. (It had once been up to 265,
but when checked again before my thyroidectomy, it was down even further
to 141.) Waligora still wanted me to see Dr. Swiryn, an electrocardiologist,
to check my rhythms since someone with a leaky valve can experience
sudden death if their rhythms go wacko.
-
July
19-21, I wore a halter heart monitor. While I had occasional PVCs
and couplets and my heart sometimes skipped a beat, nothing was sustained,
and Dr. Swiryn agreed there was no alarm and I should continue Waligora’s
prescribed treatment for maintaining a strong heart to compensate
for the leak.
-
Late
July. Vision with my contact lens certainly has not remained 20/40—perhaps
I see at 20/80. Also, my contact gets dirty quickly. Drops help, but
they last only a couple hours. I’m encouraged, however, that vision
using a magnifying glass rather than my contact (a little trick I
learned), is better than ever, indicating, I think, that my retina
and cornea continue to improve, and that I just need the right optics.
-
July
27, I had my thyroid removed in a two hour surgery. No complications!
The pathology report indicated that the cancer had not spread. After
an I-131 treatment and regular monitoring since, the doctors considers
me “cured,” though I take a daily thyroid pil.
-
In
August of 2006, my cardiologist decided it was time to get my leaky
valve repaired. Even though it involved open-heart surgery during
which my heart was stopped for over an hour and a half, I went into
the surgery without fear. My leak was fully repaired, and because
my doctor had helped me keep my heart strong for the 16 years we'd
known about the problem, my recovery was rapid and within two weeks,
I was walking five miles a day.
Update, 2010
-
No
problems developed in my right eye, which remains correctable to 20/20.
And the sight in my left eye is stable and correctable to about 20/30,
good enough to read with that eye alone. However, I do have a reminder
of my ordeal, not unlike the limp Jacob lived with after wrestling
all night with the Lord. Right in the center of focus in my left eye
(only) I still have a small blind spot, that covers a couple letters
in any word with some distortion around them. And perhaps because
of the scleral buckle, I lost some perpherial vision in that eye as
well. Otherwise, I am extremely thankful for seeing as well as I do.
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