Curing My Blindness

As the eagle spreads its spirit high above the rock lair of the lizard, so soars the Way of God beyond our earthbound grasp. On occasion, if our hearts are right, the fleeting shadow of purpose will lift us from our valley of blindness. I would like to share the event which God used to cure my spiritual myopia.

I’m a Christian who went against the strict sectarianism of the World Wide Church of God before their moment of enlightenment. As custodial parent of four teenagers, I chose to disregard the advise of my minister and marry a Jewish woman. For my pains, I was banned from taking part in the fellowship of my church, although my children were allowed to continue. Although I felt nobody had the right to dictate my decision, I accepted my sentence. I mention this only because the year I spent out of the woods seems to have helped me see the trees all the better.

By marrying, I inherited a culture foreign to anything I had experienced. Not just that they were Jewish, but that they were, primarily, irreligious. Most Christians don’t realize the wide diversity contained within the Jewish culture. The Holocaust has, also, had its existential effect – the "How can there be a

God if He allowed this to happen to us," attitude. My newly inherited daughter-in-law exemplified this attitude. The events of her life had turned her into a professed atheist.

As a child, she had suffered from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and a number of other ailments which took her in and out of hospitals. She explained her atheism by saying, "If I believed in a God who allowed so much capricious suffering, it would leave me filled with anger. It’s easier to believe I’m just a victim of fate.

We seldom spoke, however. She didn’t accept me, and my wife suffered from the alienation our marriage had created. We were seldom invited to visit with them and our twin grandsons. But, God had a plan to heal the relationship and provide a continuing witness for the future.

One evening my wife came to me with a request: "Rachel’s in the hospital again. She has crone’s disease (an ulceration of the bowels) and their going to do surgery on her tomorrow. I want you to pray to that God of yours for her to be healed."

I was stunned. "Let me get this straight. You want me to pray to the God you don’t believe in to do something you don’t believe happens?" This was a situation fraught with possible repercussions.

"I never said I don’t believe in a God," was her response. "I just said I don’t know what to believe. If there is a God and you aren’t lying to me about Him, He can hardly ignore my request."

Oh, my God! What a position. In front of me was the Red Sea and behind came the Pharaoh. And, I was no Moses. Now what. If I refused, I would be branded uncaring. If I agreed and God did nothing, I would be branded as an idiot of blind faith. Besides, why should God heal her. She was a selfish little brat who denied His very existence. I came up with a weak argument. "To be healed, she has to request an elder to come and anoint her. She’s not going to do that." There!

"If God is as caring as you say, He’ll understand. Besides, didn’t you have an anointed cloth sent to you when your first wife had hepatitis? You said that worked."

"Yeah, but that was for me. She was my wife and, besides, I was new to the faith and didn’t really understand the procedure."

"Well," she said. "I’m your wife now, and this is for me. That little girl has gone through so much in her life. Just do it for me. What can it hurt to try?"

"OK", I said. "What can it hurt? Like chicken soup."

"Now you’re beginning to understand the culture. I’ll leave you alone tonight. I don’t care if you stay up all night and miss work tomorrow."

After she left, I followed the instructions in James 5 and called my minister to request an anointed cloth. He was cool to the idea. I was still not allowed to attend services, and I think he was uncomfortable even talking to me. I had refused to be the good recalcitrant he’d expected and just go away. "You know we can’t do that. To anoint her, she has to agree. This isn’t a magic potion. It represents understanding and coming under the authority of God." I argued back that a child doesn’t understand that, and she was like one of our children.

Although he still refused, something he has long regretted, he agreed to pray for "God’s Will" to be done with her. That night, I spent a lot of knee time over the matter – not just for the requested healing, but for a deeper understanding, as well. Much later, I fell into a sound sleep knowing I had done my part despite possessing little faith in the outcome. The rest was up to God.

The next afternoon, I received my first answer: Rachel had been taken down for a final X-ray prior to the procedure. It came out negative. More X-rays were taken; all negative. The originals were studied; and they, too, were negative of any evidence of Crones. The hospital was in an uproar. The radiologist, the doctor, the surgeon, all involved insisted the tests had been properly read and backed up the diagnosis. When they proposed going ahead with exploratory surgery, my stepson (also a doctor), refused to allow it and demanded his wife be released.

"Well, what do you think now?’ I asked Bubbie.

"They must have missed the diagnosis to begin with. But, thanks for praying, anyway." I was perplexed, but I shouldn’t have been. If God had wanted to make a statement, the original X-ray would have shown the problem. After all, she had insisted that no mention of my prayer be made to Rachel. God had kept His part of the bargain 100%. He had cured Rachel and the X-ray as well. Oh, well. I hadn’t been given any deeper understanding; but, at least, Bubbie was happy.

A year or so later, after relations had dropped to their nadir, we all sat down to face off our differences. I felt horrible for my wife’s distress at feeling cut-off because of me. Despite efforts to avoid a confrontation, Rachel used the forum to vent on us. Listening to her, I began to understand her inner motivations.

She’d been sick most of her life. Her family and friends had been her support group. We, on the other hand, didn’t exist to provide for her so we were considered outsiders. This, I decided, was a most insecure person. Where I had thought she felt me inferior to her station, I realized I frightened her – I was as alien to her as she to me. I dropped my emotional guard in an effort to disarm those fears.

She tore into me like a prize fighter sensing victory. But, God had dealt me the ace of trump without which, I would have been quickly reduced to a spot of dung on her rug. Her accusation, "You don’t care about me! You never have and never will" provided the opening..

Reduced to tears by the personal attack, I sobbed back, "You might think that; but, when you were in the hospital, I spent the better part of a night praying God would heal you," I thought I was giving her the last bit she needed to finish me off. "I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but…" I just trailed off, defeated, broken.

Her reaction stunned us all. Her face softened. She sat back, heaved a deep breath and said, "Don’t be so sure. Something happened that nobody’s else been able to explain -- till now."

Rachel is still Jewish and, at best, an agnostic. But, when she couldn’t sell her house, she requested a St. Joseph statue which was buried in her back yard with all due ceremony to the great disgust of her mother. "We’re Jewish; we don’t do that," was silenced when the house sold in less than a week.

Whenever there’s a problem with no apparent answer now-a-days, request for prayer is forthcoming. Best of all, we’ve become friends capable of joking with each other. The grandkids refer to me as "their Bill," and my wife has the relationship she’s longed for.

More significant than Rachel’s physical healing has been the way God healed my outlook on those who believe other than I do. I, now, realize that miraculous healings are not meant to spare Christians from suffering; but to teach lessons of mercy. Whether or not God wishes to reveal His involvement to doubters is entirely up to Him. What God does promise to heal in James 5 14-15 is our spirit. By being anointed we come under His providence. Whatever our fate thereafter, it’s in God’s hands to chose.

The suffering we all endure teaches us to care about one another. When we see how someone like Rachel is healed, we realize we are to care for all humanity; not just our little fellowship. When Jesus walked among us, He healed others without regard. When His chance came on the cross, He surrendered to the suffering which was His fate knowing what purpose it served. What a miracle of healing it was, when God cured my blindness to that fact