Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Before and After (05/14/09)
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TITLE: Deja Vu | Previous Challenge Entry
By Fiona Dorothy Stevenson
05/17/09 -
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I heard the words. Immediately I was back, in a different time, a different place. A different man looked down at me. “Within two years you will lose the sight in your right eye,” he said. His voice, his words, were precise. He offered no explanation. His face was compassionate.
I stood, thanking him, asking no questions. Was it unbelief or just the resilience of youth? His words were real and yet unreal. I had to meet them, absorb them, in my own time and way.
He followed me to the reception desk, handed my card to his secretary, advised me to call at the weekend for the new glasses.
They were small, they were light, and they were attractive. But I had a headache, one of those blinding, sick headaches that debilitate and exhaust you. I could not put the glasses to my face.
It was only weeks since my husband and I had discovered the truth of Scripture, learned the love of God, and accepted the grace and mercy of the Savior. We attended every church meeting that we could. On this Sunday I was present, but for the first time with one of my frequent headaches. I found it impossible to concentrate, difficult to participate.
After the service we joined a group for coffee with our neighbors. The Pastor remarked that I was very quiet. I answered that I had a headache. “No problem!” he replied. “Our God is a God who heals.” He quoted one or two scriptures and asked, “Do you believe?”
All I wanted was to get into my bed and close my eyes. Nothing else mattered. I waited.
“Joy – oil.” “Cooking oil?” “Bring it.”
He anointed my forehead gently while he prayed. Instantly the headache was gone, my eyes were healed, and it was many years before I needed glasses. And then it was for close work only.
Now, a half-century later, I looked into the gray eyes waiting my response. “What do you recommend?”
“Cataracts are not a major problem today. An eye surgeon visits our area once a month. I will give you a letter of recommendation to him. You will have to join the waiting list. It takes about a year. He will remove one cataract and you will go back on the waiting list to have the second cataract removed.”
So it was arranged, and in due season the first cataract was removed. After the eye was healed I gloried in colors that had become dim, being able once more to read, to sew a button on! I began to anticipate the second operation.
But I am a pensioner, reliant on the government medical aid to pay the charges for the operation. The surgeon said, “You can manage now. I will not do the second operation.”
Now, after a respite of three years, I face the question as before: “Within two, or at the most three years, you will lose the sight of your right eye.”
The Lord is compassionate, and He is merciful. These limitations are for this life alone. Soon, very soon, I shall look upon His dear face, and my failing eyesight will be gone. I shall see Him perfectly.
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