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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.
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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.
This exploration must be getting to a difficult point. I keep putting off doing any further writing. But I need to get past this point, whatever it is.
That argument with the girl in my dorm seems to have had a profound effect on me. I remember feeling intense loneliness before that time of my life, but I don't remember relating that loneliness to my blindness or feeling that I was inferior because of my blindness. I just remember wondering what made me so repulsive to my peers and wondering what made me so different from the average person.
As soon as the argument occurred and she began to make statements which implied that my experience in Christ was incomplete because I was not healed of my blindness, something changed in me. I suddenly had to be healed in order to know thatI was good enough for God. Why I took one girl's comment so personally is a complex thing which can only be understood by examining the actual conversation. Fortunately, I turned in my confused state to writing.
I am really confused right now. Some of us just had a huge discussion about healing and faith. K. said that she thinks healing should be a part of Christianity, like salvation. I don'tthink I agree with that, but I am not sure because I don't know a thing that the Bible says about it. I believe that there is a reason for some of the unfortunate things that happen to us, like my blindness. I explained that my parents prayed for my healing for years, and the most God has done has been to allow me to live past that first 24 hours.
"Are you sure your parents didn't just say, 'Just as long as You let her live?'" K. asked.
Well, to be honest, that makes me angry. For Her to call my parents' faith into question, if that is the correct interpretation! That was my first impression. But maybe she was just stimulating discussion.
But I know that my parents did pray for healing. I have prayed for healing, and many other people around me have prayed for my healing. ... I don't think that we lacked the amount of faith that was needed. I know the verse that says that "a mustard seed of faith" is enough to move mountains. There have been times in my life when I have been on the very edge of giving up my faith, but the last grain of faith I had was enough to bring abouta change in my life. I know from those experiences that I do not lack faith.
I was at a time in my life when people search for their independence in many ways. Attending college 1100 miles away from home, I had begun requesting that my parents not intervene in my disputes with university staff over my ability to complete work forclasses or my need for a roommate or their perception that I tended to depend on others. Despite this search for independence, I was well aware that my parents played a vital role in my growth in manyways. Perhaps the area where they had the most impact on me was my spiritual life. To call their faith and actions into question was more than I could bear. I knew that they had prayed and had faith. If that faith wasn't enough, and if my own faith and the faith of so many other people hadn't been enough, then I must not be worthy of healing. Without a solid knowledge of Biblical teachings in this particular area, I had no way to bolster myself against her claims.
Meetings with pastors and counselors were only moderately helpful. The seed had been planted, and the question of whether or not I was good enough for God to heal me continued to fester and grow into a belief that I was inferior to all sighted people. They could go places I couldn't go without planning far in advance, dothings I couldn't do, appreciate things I couldn't appreciate, and be close to a God I obviously could never know despite all the evidence that God had loved and cared for me and still did.
When my vision began to improve in 1992, I accepted it as His way of telling me that He still does heal and that He did care about my pain. I never ceased to be thankful that He had seen fit to give me back the vision which I had lost. This was why the sudden loss early this year has been such a blow to me. For six years I had been resting in His love and mercy. I can recall even having preferences for certain kinds of visual input. Am I to lose this blessing now?
The postponing of the surgery was a blow to my hopes. Two weeks is not a long time to wait. However, since moving to Indiana, I have been trying to plan for this surgery and have been unable to make any plans for employment or further progress in school because of the scheduling problems. I have grown tired of sitting in a quiet house all day and having only a minimum ofactivity to keep my mind occupied. I crave meaningful relationships and challenges which I do not have. Postponing the surgery means an additional period of this longing. A part of me is now at the point of letting go of my wish to see and wanting only for this to be over so that I can move on.
Yet I cannot give up the surgery. I am now willing to accept the outcome, whatever it may be. But I must follow through withthis plan. For God has given me the resources. Medicaid coverage has been provided.
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