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Thanks for visiting my diary. I've been journaling since 1984 and have chosen to share some of my entries online. They are not all positive thoughts, but I hope that reading them might be a blessing to someone who needs encouragement.
If you are just coming to my diary for the first time, please read my introductory entry, where I share some background that is important if you plan to follow this diary regularly.
Please also visit my music page, where you can hear samples from my debut CD, I Believe, which features songs written based on experiences shared in this journal.
Okay. You said for me to write down everything I was feeling and thinking, so I am.
How will I explain this to people? What if they laugh and don't believe me?
What will it be like to be able to see? How will I know I can see? I will have to learn to read. I will have to learn to recognize people. I will have to adjust to distance and depth. I have absolutely no visual concept of these. I will have to learn colors. I don't know anyone who has been through this.
But I still want it. As far as greed goes, I don't know what to say. I can't question what was in the hearts of the people You healed. I don't know what they did after they were healed. Did they spread Your truth? Or did they go on and forget You. I would like to spread Your truth, to glorify You. I don't want to just pass this off. I don't want to forget You.
I don't want my faith in You to be dependent on this. I have so far found no verse or passage to back up "I don't have enough faith is not true." No, I don't think it was because of my lack of faith that I wasn't healed. Yes, I do have a lack of faith. Or at least a need to grow. Maybe that is more the word I am looking for. I must be able to trust You. I have to trust You, and I know better than to think my trust is now complete. I am always surrendering things to You, taking them out of my hands.
I don't want to kill others, though, with this truth. If You do heal me, what do I tell them when they ask why they haven't been healed.
I am awed at what You have done just in the last 24 hours. I can't forget to thank You and praise You for that. Vicki was right on that. But I don't believe You are finished. (Will I ever get enough? That question is ever in my mind, and that is my red flag.) Whether it is in greed or just desire, I have to ask for more. It IS my heart's desire. You know that, of course. You know it goes deeper than even I know.
I am coming to a place where I must choose faith or no faith. I choose faith, complete faith, and I know I am getting there. I trust you to get me there. I know it won't always be glorious, and I don't expect physical sight to be a cure-all. I know it may not do anything directly for my ministry, and I don't think I want it if it is going to hurt the ministry. But I have to ask.
I thank You for helping me to realize I need to be honest with You. I want to. I want to be in direct communication with You always, to know Your voice, to feel Your touch.
I thank You for all the people who have ministered to me. I pray that You will strengthen Vicki and speak to her heart. Make whatever she has to do easy for her. I also pray that You will hear her prayers for Marty and that You will continue to work in him.
Thank You for beginning the healing for me. I believe in it, even in spite of my fear. I am afraid of being deceived, of putting my faith in something false. But the only way to know is to put my faith in You and to trust that this is from You. I do not know how to test the spirits, so I will have to trust You to test them for me.
My heart's desire is for complete healing in body and soul. I believe You want this for me and that You said You would give it to me. Please help me not to lose faith.
And I praise You just because. When I think of all the things I have seen You do, I can't help but praise You. I remember Your presence so strong at Praise Gathering on that Friday night. I know that WAS You. I remember You at the prayer meetings, and I know that was You. I remember You keeping me from killing myself and reminding me that You died for my tears and that You felt my pain, and I know that was You. I know You are real, and I praise You. That can never be taken away from me.
"But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul." (Deuteronomy 29:13)
I received this from Peter today.
Much of my vision has returned today. I am awed to think that 36 hours ago I could see just about nothing, and now I am seeing just under as well as I could see a couple of months ago.
I don't think God is finished. I really do believe the answer is yes to my prayer. I have been blessed with a strange peace and confidence and praise. And I have learned some things from it.
I have learned the importance of being honest with God. Vicki said, "you were at peace this summer." I was and I wasn't. I had rationalized this whole thing. I had told myself that God was using me just like I was. And that was true?is true. But I had also convinced myself that my desire for healing was unimportant. It was selfish. I was not going to die; other people were. They were the ones I should be praying for. So instead of bringing my desire-- selfish or not--to God openly, I pushed it away and wrote about John 9:1-3 off. It was all true, but I didn't believe it for myself. I knew this, and I knew that instead of the issue of healing being the stumbling block, my hidden desire was the real stumbling block.
Yesterday was the first time I had ever prayed for myself and not said, "I am being selfish." you saw the prayer. you saw my honesty in saying, "Yes, I do have doubts. No, I don't know if I really believe this." No, I don't think my lack--or at least unsurety--of faith is why I haven't been healed. But if I see my unsurety because of my desire for healing and grow from it, then I have something. And if the healing follows or comes in the midst of my growth, then an extra halelujah. Yes, I happen to believe I received a yes answer. My belief is based on what I heard audibly last April and the fact that my vision has been increasing with each prayer of "Lord, this must come out in the open"; with each recognition, "Lord, thank you for doing this certain thing for me"; with each song I have sung of praise and admission that yes, he does provide and care for me.
And the peace is incredible. I finally see a glimpse of Philippians 4:6-7, "Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ." I have no reason for this. I have a doctor's appointment in Houston next Friday, and all I see is that he will say he can either try more expensive measures or nothing else will do anything. I am spending $222.00 on a plane ticket for this trip.
I don't know if my peace is based on the presence of some of my physical sight, and right now I don't care. I think it would be all too easy for me after being where I was 48 hours ago to say, "I don't believe in this. This is just another lull in the loss." But I choose not to. I will NOT be disappointed. I will take the step of faith, and if I fall I will fall in faith. I will get over any disappointment. I am to a point where I must choose either to walk in faith and risk what I have for what blessing may be ahead unseen or to stay here and hold on to what I have, only to lose it.
I see the end. I will choose to walk in faith. I am too stubborn for anything else. I need continued strength for the middle. I know things will not always be this easy and peaceful. But I know I will pull through with God's help.
And these lessons are far greater and deeper than physical healing. Yet another work of God being made manifest.
I equate this in some way to the rich young man who asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Will I walk away from following Christ because what I have is precious to me? (And I am not rich...) Or will I risk it for the love in His eyes? It's there, and at times I see it. I can find Him everywhere I go. I just ignore His love, the love that will bless me beyond what I can imagine, because I think I can get what I want with my own resources.
Yes, the rich man wanted eternal life. But not enough to sell everything, to be a fool in the eyes of the world, and follow that man with the love in His eyes. Not enough to follow that Man who watched him go with compassion and, doubtless, grief; the Man who said, "How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
It wasn't hard because of what he had. It wasn't some plot God had against the rich. It was the fact that he held onto his wealth, something that could be taken away at any second, instead of reaching out for the promise of eternal life. It was that he was too afraid to trust the Lord. He trusted in himself and his money and didn't see how little he could see or how limited his resources were.
And this grieved God more than anything else, I think. God didn't want to destroy His creation. He wanted and still wants today nothing more than to give to us out of His riches?riches that we cannot see or imagine until you accept His offer andfollow Him and receive His blessings.
Angi said to always praise and not lose faith because Satan would come in. And that is true for more than my prayers for healing. It took the prayers for healing for me to hear that. And my vision remained consistent, even through my little prayer through the tears. And I have learned through this writing.
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