Day 13: Dave Janssen
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5,6
Being a “higher mileage vehicle” has its benefits, but also its challenges.
This last year, one Sunday morning, I noticed a few of the letters were missing from the text on the screen during worship. They were replaced by gray blotches. I said to myself it was my astigmatism, but it was something quite different. A tiny blood vessel had rubbed the wrong way and leaked into the back of my eye up against the optic nerve. Suddenly things were blurry, with gray places in my field of vision. As if things weren’t already blurry enough in life! I finally decided to have it checked out and was able to secure an appointment with the head of the Phillips Eye Surgery Center…Doctor Phillips himself.
Doctor Phillips leaned back in his swivel chair while looking at the pictures, and announced some bad news. My eyesight was now 2200/20. 2400/20 is usually the point of no return. Not good. He felt there was a chance it could get worse and called in their specialist. She drove an hour and arrived in green scrubs with a package of chilled medicine in hand. It would be a shot in the eye to stabilize it. She suggested there was hope, but it was borderline. People prayed at the healing service, and this all seemed to be an answer to how things would develop.
Each month for the following four months I routinely went to get a shot in the eye which would stabilize sight for about three weeks. Intense pictures of the optic nerve complete with edema were part of the routine.
As expected, my eyesight would diminish in week four because the medicine completely lost all efficacy at that time. In the fifth month, the doctor that drove that fateful hour, a board-certified surgeon and specialist, was prepping herself to have a discussion with me on that day which was to be bad news. She was steeling herself up for it on the way to the office. She was to tell me that since the eye problem, an edema sitting up against the optic nerve, was untouched by the medicine for four months, all they would probably be able to do is maintain it for the rest of my life.
But something happened before that talk. Prep for each appointment with her also involves an eyesight test with an assistant. As the text went up on the screen, I was able to read it with the affected eye. I kept saying “go smaller” on the text. The assistant started getting animated, and then announced that this has never happened before in the clinic; so much improvement in a month. Suddenly I was reading text at 20/10, which meant I could see at 20 feet what a normal person would see at 10. She walked out of the room and my doctor popped her head in before our appointment and jokingly asked if I had an eye transplant in the month!
The photo scans showed something amazing. The edema had completely disappeared. Everything was normal. The additional proof that something had happened was the better than normal eyesight. She also stated that she has never seen anything like this. She stated that there was no medical or scientific explanation for what had happened. The medicine obviously couldn’t touch it, but the entire problem just up and disappeared. The medicine allowed for better vision for a few weeks, but had no impact on the edema. She suggested she was going to write this up for a journal. We all celebrated and recognized something very divine has happened. The problem was healed!
The Lord had spoken to my heart that it would be healed, but didn’t tell me how that would happen. It was not a sudden miracle at the healing service, however, I believe it was united prayer that moved things into action. It wasn’t a moment in a worship service, as I probably wouldn’t even notice it. It involved a connection with fine medical people who because of how it happened, had evidence of a very clear encounter with God. They have the monthly pictures to prove it.
Sometimes the Lord heals us in different ways than we expect. Sometimes we want a healing in our bodies, but He is after other areas of our lives. He seems to be even more concerned with healing and restoring our souls. But He also knows how to touch our bodies. My take away from all of this reminds me that He gets to plan the journey as things happen in life. Clearly, the Lord received glory that a number of medical people were able to see with scientific eyes.
Sometimes we obviously suffer a bit in our human experience, and it winds up at a place we do not expect or even want…but people get to see the hand of God in way they also need. And then we do as well.
I saw a miracle which is my boast in the Lord. I didn’t feel anything special happening, but in His quiet ways caused it to happen powerfully. It happened at some point in a moment of time, and it was then allowed to be experienced by people who would then see His majestic hand.
Was it worth it? Absolutely.
Would I change His plan and have it happen the way I wanted? No. I love how Jesus did this.
God is faithful to His promises. They often can have a surprise ending. That is the adventure of walking by faith.
Being a “higher mileage vehicle” has its benefits, but also its challenges.
This last year, one Sunday morning, I noticed a few of the letters were missing from the text on the screen during worship. They were replaced by gray blotches. I said to myself it was my astigmatism, but it was something quite different. A tiny blood vessel had rubbed the wrong way and leaked into the back of my eye up against the optic nerve. Suddenly things were blurry, with gray places in my field of vision. As if things weren’t already blurry enough in life! I finally decided to have it checked out and was able to secure an appointment with the head of the Phillips Eye Surgery Center…Doctor Phillips himself.
Doctor Phillips leaned back in his swivel chair while looking at the pictures, and announced some bad news. My eyesight was now 2200/20. 2400/20 is usually the point of no return. Not good. He felt there was a chance it could get worse and called in their specialist. She drove an hour and arrived in green scrubs with a package of chilled medicine in hand. It would be a shot in the eye to stabilize it. She suggested there was hope, but it was borderline. People prayed at the healing service, and this all seemed to be an answer to how things would develop.
Each month for the following four months I routinely went to get a shot in the eye which would stabilize sight for about three weeks. Intense pictures of the optic nerve complete with edema were part of the routine.
As expected, my eyesight would diminish in week four because the medicine completely lost all efficacy at that time. In the fifth month, the doctor that drove that fateful hour, a board-certified surgeon and specialist, was prepping herself to have a discussion with me on that day which was to be bad news. She was steeling herself up for it on the way to the office. She was to tell me that since the eye problem, an edema sitting up against the optic nerve, was untouched by the medicine for four months, all they would probably be able to do is maintain it for the rest of my life.
But something happened before that talk. Prep for each appointment with her also involves an eyesight test with an assistant. As the text went up on the screen, I was able to read it with the affected eye. I kept saying “go smaller” on the text. The assistant started getting animated, and then announced that this has never happened before in the clinic; so much improvement in a month. Suddenly I was reading text at 20/10, which meant I could see at 20 feet what a normal person would see at 10. She walked out of the room and my doctor popped her head in before our appointment and jokingly asked if I had an eye transplant in the month!
The photo scans showed something amazing. The edema had completely disappeared. Everything was normal. The additional proof that something had happened was the better than normal eyesight. She also stated that she has never seen anything like this. She stated that there was no medical or scientific explanation for what had happened. The medicine obviously couldn’t touch it, but the entire problem just up and disappeared. The medicine allowed for better vision for a few weeks, but had no impact on the edema. She suggested she was going to write this up for a journal. We all celebrated and recognized something very divine has happened. The problem was healed!
The Lord had spoken to my heart that it would be healed, but didn’t tell me how that would happen. It was not a sudden miracle at the healing service, however, I believe it was united prayer that moved things into action. It wasn’t a moment in a worship service, as I probably wouldn’t even notice it. It involved a connection with fine medical people who because of how it happened, had evidence of a very clear encounter with God. They have the monthly pictures to prove it.
Sometimes the Lord heals us in different ways than we expect. Sometimes we want a healing in our bodies, but He is after other areas of our lives. He seems to be even more concerned with healing and restoring our souls. But He also knows how to touch our bodies. My take away from all of this reminds me that He gets to plan the journey as things happen in life. Clearly, the Lord received glory that a number of medical people were able to see with scientific eyes.
Sometimes we obviously suffer a bit in our human experience, and it winds up at a place we do not expect or even want…but people get to see the hand of God in way they also need. And then we do as well.
I saw a miracle which is my boast in the Lord. I didn’t feel anything special happening, but in His quiet ways caused it to happen powerfully. It happened at some point in a moment of time, and it was then allowed to be experienced by people who would then see His majestic hand.
Was it worth it? Absolutely.
Would I change His plan and have it happen the way I wanted? No. I love how Jesus did this.
God is faithful to His promises. They often can have a surprise ending. That is the adventure of walking by faith.
Posted in Boast in the Lord \\\'25
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