The gift

(Continued from part 1 of the story here) I made my way to North Carolina for an eye appointment during those weeks. My uber driver picked me up, his accent thick from the heart of Africa. I asked him which country his accent was from. Nigeria, he responded, we chatted about Africa for a moment and he asked me if NC was my home or if I was visiting. Both actually. But I explained I was there for an eye appointment. He said if I didn’t mind him asking what it was about and I explained my diagnosis and prognosis. He waited a moment and responded. “You will not go blind, you will ask and your sight will be restored. You will eat from a garden and you will see.” In the moment I was both parts shaken and confused. Did he not understand the science of it all? Or did he just have a faith that saw bigger than mine? I texted my girls friend group about it and somehow promptly forgot of the interchange. 

The airplane window view from that NC flight

My eye appointment brought more news. Each appointment since diagnosis, my eye pressures had crept higher and higher towards a dangerous range of pressures. My doctor explained that RP and my edema’s cause the pressure to increase, but even the shots he was injecting into my eyes increased pressures to a point where he may have to lessen them or do them less frequently. My pressures had risen from 14 at diagnosis to 21-22 that appointment. They steadily increased each appointment. I got my injections that day, the worst ones to date. He hit scar tissue which caused my eyeball to bleed and he had to do the injections again in another spot in the back of the eye. It was incredibly painful. I also had to do another test where they place a thick contact over the eye (more like a scale than a contact) which they adhesive to your eye with a thick gel, this scale holds a wire to the eyeball and she proceeds to flash different brightnesses of lights into my dilated (already light sensitive) eyes while I am instructed not to blink (and given drops to stop my eyes from blinking). For 26 minutes I sat there, eyes wide open, scales glued to them, in a pitch black room, eyes pouring tears as I didn’t blink for the entire 26 minutes. John sat there and told me it was like watching someone in a torture chamber, which is exactly what it felt like to me. The results of that ERG (electro-retinogram) test the electrical output of rods and cones, showing what cell death is present and what retinal life is still functioning. As same as the last ERG from two years previous, my rods (night and peripheral) were a flat line of output, showing substantial cell death, and my cones (color and central vision) fired less than a normal person but still had electrical output enough to justify my current sight. I told John that day I never wanted to do that test again.

Back home to Atlanta, the pandemic dragged on, I was longing to find new community here, but also just desperate to be in person with other believers talking about Jesus and someone to join me in the wrestling place I found myself. I heard of a Bible study about to start in person in February, it was actually over an hour drive from my house but I didn’t care. Again, my spirit jumped before my mouth and I signed myself up. The study started and was a perfect continuation of the previous two months. A challenging and unraveling of limits I had placed on God due to types of churches I grew up in or limited understanding. God used the study to continue to open the eyes of my heart and spiritual understanding to a bigness of him that I had not yet experienced. Week after week, I found myself blowing up walls of the box I had unknowingly put God in. I was digging into the Bible and prayer like never before. I was still in the wrestling place with the healing ordeal, but I was also seeing Scripture in a new way, like I had never read it before in my life. Meanwhile, I was still working my way from Matthew to Acts, and the Holy Spirit was coming to life in a way I had never seen him. I realized, the Spirit had been to me like the neglected, misunderstood third member of the Trinity. Concurrently, the Bible study I was doing was showing that we were not relying on the power of the Holy Spirit. So many things stuck out to me from it. I think I realized in a lot of ways that through my discipline of seeking God, reading, praying, I think I was unknowingly seeing God as a displeased father, one whose arms I needed to uncross with my works so that I would be accepting to him. This is the opposite of the foundational truth of the gospel, I could speak the truth with my words and know in my mind, but for it to translate to a place of release and freedom in my heart was a new experience. We talked about that Jesus was a demonstrator of the gospel, not just a proclaimer of it. And that the miracles and things Jesus did during his ministry were not simply to just prove he was who he said he was, but instead to give us an example of what it looks like to be a son or daughter. He demonstrated bringing the kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven, and that is also our mission as a child of God. Whatever is unleashed in heaven, we should be praying into reality and unleashing here through prayer and faith. The healing example and discussion kept resurfacing throughout the Bible study and I continued to explore it with shaky obedience and curiosity.

The final week of the Bible study came, the leaders, who we had been watching on video were going to be in person. As I drove my hour long drive, I figured they may ask that day if we had any questions or areas of the study we wanted to talk about and as I drove I prepared my litany of questions. ‘What about the people that don’t get healed, why do people seemingly have to ask for healing, why wouldn’t God just zap it down without us participating in some way, if I have to participate that feels like its my responsibility and I am trying to get away from the performing aspect of faith’. Questions swirled as I tried to remember all I had struggled with as I made my way through the miracles of Jesus and the disciples. As I listed them out in my mind on I-85, I heard God say so clearly, “let it go, you can stop wrestling, open your hands, ask me”. Immediately it was like a new revelation and even my feelings came right alongside it. My thoughts immediately changed, a complete 180. Why in the world was I wrestling this to the ground? I didn’t want my cynicism, skepticism or lack of full understanding about healing be the block to just saying yes to the invitation God had so clearly put before me. Each time I read another miracle of Jesus and another healing story, it was as if I would hear God say, “Just ask me, you are my beloved daughter, you can ask”. But each time I came up with 3 reasons why I couldn’t or fear and misunderstanding would keep me from truly asking. There were moments I could ascent to asking in my mind, but not in my heart. But right there on the interstate I told God I was done wrestling, I was ready to receive, I was ready to ask not because of my deservingness but because of my position as His daughter. And right there on the interstate I asked as plainly and confidently as I could, 

‘God heal me. I believe you can and I am your daughter asking her Father for something you’ve told me to ask you. I don’t understand it and I don’t have to, but I trust you and I know you’re able. Jesus, heal my eyes.'

Honestly, it was an easy prayer to ask after I finally got to the place of release and receiving, and it was far less of a lofty or weighty prayer than I imagined, it came and went far more quickly than all the wrestling seemed to justify and I moved on singing and praying my way up the interstate to the final gathering of our Bible study.

I had never met Rachel or Karen before, the authors of the study (Father’s House) but you can immediately sense the Spirit in their presence.We had been watching them on video, but for the final session they came in person. They taught the last lesson, all about the explosive, transformative power of the Spirit and how often we miss out on it because we don't know to ask for more. They mentioned the homework from the previous week and part of it was a fill in the blank prayer we were supposed to ask God to speak into. No one was sharing theirs and I was immediately prompted to share mine. I read,

Dear Beloved Daughter,

I am so pleased that you are leaning into all that I am. I have been waiting for you to see me in a new light, to come with me to a deeper place. You have been mistaken when you thought that I was a punishing, displeased or unwilling Father. I can’t wait for you to soak in all that I am and see the invitations I have set before you.

As I read it out loud, I didn’t remember a single word of writing it down, but my heart rang true with each word. I had heard so clearly from the Lord that this diagnosis was never about the outcome, he instead took what the enemy meant for evil and used it for my good, as a way to take me to a deeper place with him, a place I couldn’t get to without it. He had put invitation after invitation before me along this journey with losing my vision and as I sometimes boldly and sometimes reluctantly said yes to each one, it made way for another invitation. My spiritual eyes were opening with each passing week and I was seeing him in a new light, I was seeing his word in a way that was alive and inviting and so very intimate. I was not reading words on a page or eye witness accounts of miracles, I was hearing the words of a Father who wanted to reach his daughter’s heart. 

Karen looked at me and said can we pray for you? I welcomed it. Karen, Rachel and the four facilitators of our study gathered round and began to pray. Rachel mentioned first healing for my eyes, for them to be opened in radical fullness, for the healing he died for to come forth into that moment. Karen paused and asked if I had a diagnosis, I explained what it was. She came around and put her hand on my eyes and began to pray, she prayed the diagnosis of going blind under the power of Jesus, she asked me to say that I receive by faith my sight. She commanded my vision to be expanded. She asked if I could see, when I opened my eyes I saw what I normally do and I explained I could see perfectly straight ahead, it was that I had peripheral loss. I put my hands up near my cheeks and said I can see to here, just nothing behind it. She said "then we are not done praying". She then put her hand on each of my hands and continued to pray as she pushed my hands back toward my peripheral near my shoulders as we both looked at each other. Immediately, as she pushed my hands, color, light, clarity rushed into my peripheral as each person in the room came into striking clarity beside me. As I looked Karen in the eyes, the room became disorienting and large because my sight was immediately expanded. First I saw one lady on the couch, then another, then another, then the table and lamp, then my friend directly to my right, I could see her ponytail and jacket and glasses with sharp clarity. It was shocking, overwhelming, amazing, surprising, awe invoking. I had not realized how small my vision had become until that moment where it became expansive in an instant. I had gone from looking through what felt like a toilet paper tube to being in an IMAX theater. Everything felt completely huge and overwhelming. Now, for the last two years, I “test myself” all the time with my vision. I put hands up in my periphery and see when it comes into view. I knew exactly how close my hand has to get to my cheek before I saw it. Now here I sat, hands out above my shoulders and I could see both hands completely. It was unavoidably, unexplainably and inextricably miraculous. 

I got in the car that day to drive home from the miracle that occurred and sat in the drivers seat, stared at the car in front of me and was floored at all I could see: my cup in the cupholder, my gear shifter, my jeans, my door handles and locks, it was distracting how much I could see. I moved my hands around like a crazy person and they not once went out of view. I drove home weeping. I called John, my parents, my sister and told them. I was in complete amazement at all God had done, at the Spirit’s healing work he accomplished.

I didn’t have a doctor’s appointment for another month and a half back in NC. But I was dying to know what happened and see if it showed up in my scans. The next day I called several local eye doctors asking if they could get me in for a retinal scan. Many were months out or weeks out, which put me right near my other appointment, but on my last call she said there had been a cancellation and she could get me in the following day, Good Friday, for that scan. 

I drove to the doctors office in wonder of what they’d say, all the while somehow thinking that just my experience of sight had changed but probably not the physical scans. But I again asked God to show up in that doctor’s office and do what only he could do. I walked in and was taken back, the nurse does what she always does, checks my central vision on the eye chart and it was 20/20, like always. Then she did the pressure test. Now, like I said before, my pressures had gone from 14 (normal) at time of diagnosis to 21-22 at my January appointment. Each appointment they crept up steadily, almost one at a time. 21-22 had now put me in the near danger range of pressures, so I anticipated as she touched the instrument to my eyes to test my current pressure that early April day. “Your pressures are 14, in the normal range, lets get you on over to the retinal imaging”. What? My pressure went down 7 points. In 2.5 years it had only increased, never bounced around from high to low, only increased, and now it is back to a normal pressure, the one I had the day of diagnosis. I went awestruck to retinal imaging. Picture after picture, blinding light after blinding light. The doctor came in afterwards and seemed to be in a hurry but introduced himself and moved on to the retinal scan… I think he thought I wasn’t familiar with Retinitis Pigmentosa so he explained that RP is a disease that causes retinal cells, rods and cones, to die and it shows up on a retinal cell as black speckling on the retina. Then he pulled up my images and said “these scans are not congruent with someone with RP, there is no evident retinal cell death on these scans”. I only stuttered a mumbled response as he carried on. Now there was a small area near my 30 degree mark where he said he did notice I had some “visual constriction” but he said “overall your peripheral is well in tact!” He also explained that I did have one very small macular edema but it was "pretty miniscule". He pulls up the image of my edema and I hardly recognized it. For two years I had done drops, pills and now injections to get these edemas to decrease. The drops and pills and first year and a half of trying to get them to go down in size only increased them, they actually grew in size by almost 10x their first imaging. My last appointment in January, they had gone down some but they were still considerable, and what looked like 6 of them distorting the image of the retinal wall. The image he showed me that day was like a tiny speck, nothing resembling what they were before. Immediately he said "well I will connect you with another retinal specialist here if you want to join the practice" and gave me an elbow bump and quickly left the room. I sat there speechless of what I saw. Speechless that on Good Friday, it was spoken over me that there was no evident cell death in my eyes, pressure removed, death reversed, cells resurrected, vision restored. Mind you, I knew God did miracles in the spiritual realm, I had seen hard hearts changed, marriages saved, salvation come to people, prayers answered. But to that point I had not really ever seen God change the physical miraculously like this. I’d never seen him reverse science and physical realities.

A month later I made it back to Duke Eye where they did the litany of tests. My doctor stumbled his way through 6 scans that were all different than January, last July and all of 2019. 5 edemas, gone from the scans. He sat there stuttering, explaining that RP degrades (thins) the retinal cell wall but mine had thickened since January. Literally large portions of the retinal cell wall-healed- back to a more normal thickness. I explained to him that this was due to the power of prayer and only by Jesus, he responded "well that is an intangible I can't measure". 

Isn't this our God? Bigger than we think? More powerful than we know? He is still in the resurrection business. Our prayers are so often too small, our vision of who he is so limited, our faith too shaky to ask or risk or trust. He has used that imagery so many times with me over the last months, my hands near my cheeks saying "this is all I can see" and he puts his hands on mine and says I know, and pushes them back, "but I am way out here". I have limited faith, limited prayers, limited perspective, limited understanding, but he is limitless. He wants to blow our minds with how good he is, we just have to have eyes to see it, hearts to ask for it, and a faith to believe for it. One thing Karen said after we finished praying that was so impactful for me was "This was not just my prayer, God chose to converge an army of believer's prayers for you over the last few years into this moment for your healing". I went back and spoke at a worship night and my mom, sister, close friends, even some close friends parents came. I shared the story of what happened and then afterwards, Karen had anyone stand up who had prayed for my healing. Watching so many women stand who had interceded for healing when I couldn't even muster that prayer was so impactful. This is what the Body of Christ does, it lifts up its members when we can't lift ourselves, it interjects God's power into places in our lives through prayer. So many of you have done that for me too. I am so grateful, not only just for the physical miracle, but for the spiritual sight God has given too. I think of it often when I see my child walking up in my peripheral vision, when I can walk myself through a dark room, or when I see and dont trip on another pair of shoes the kids have left on the floor. Thank you for being my army, this is as much your miracle as mine.