During most of my life, I rarely thought about blindness. I knew that I was blind at a very early age. As I grew older, I began to realize that other people used their eyes to do things while I used my ears and hands. I accepted this as fact and stoically endured occasional teasing from other children, including my younger sister. Sometimes the teasing was amusing. Sometimes it was very painful. But I endured it because adults told me that the children were teasing me because they liked me.
Most of my peers were not eager to interact with me. Some simply ignored me. Others taunted me with invitations to "be my best friend" and responded to my excitement by saying, "Well, I don't really mean it. My lack of social acceptance distressed me greatly. My parents tried valiantly to encourage me and help me find solutions. My mother suggested that I wear more make-up so that I would look like other teenagers. She also suggested that I learn to cut my own meat so that other people would not feel uncomfortable while eating with me. I took her advice--sometimes cheerfully and sometimes with annoyance--and hoped for change in my social status. Even my stoicism became an element in my attempt to gain social acceptance. I began to quip about blindness, hoping that if I showed that I was comfortable with it, other people would feel more at ease.
No change was forthcoming. Peers often asked me to change seats in the school cafeteria so that they could sit beside their friends. When I tried to participate in conversations, classmates talked around me. Some even invented ways to convince me to stop talking with them.
When I was in the eighth grade, a counselor and the assistant principal at school suggested that I work on social skills because my peers were complaining that I was rude. However, without observing my interactions, teachers were not able to assist me in improving my social skills--and no one assisted my peers in improving their interactions with me. I continued hoping and learning, through trial and error, what worked and what did not work. The most successful solution seemed to be waiting and remaining available until I met peers who did show an interest in interacting positively with me.
When I entered high school, things improved slightly. Some of the students in my high school were new to me, having attended other middle schools. These students did not have the same negative experiences with me in their past, and they were often friendly and interested in learning about blindness. These positive interactions helped me to continue to have hope for additional improvement in the future.
Yet beneath the hope, I was deeply depressed by my lack of independence and social status; and the idea that I was selfish and inconsiderate was becoming ingrained in my soul without my knowledge. I had begun to view myself as a burden, and I went to great lengths to minimize my dependence on other people. During my first year of college, the director of my residence hall suggested that I was selfish because I asked for assistance with navigating through the cafeteria and addressing envelopes so that I could send letters home; and I was inconsiderate because I had the nerve to expect my roommate to keep her side of the room relatively clean. I was not behaving in a very Christian manner, she said. I stopped sending letters home, and I began buying soup and heating it up in the microwave in my room.
In the Christian faith we are taught to be selfless, that other people's needs should come before our own. Jesus taught, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Paul instructed the Philippians, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition, but in humility consider others better than yourself." So conscious did I become of my dependencies that I began to ignore my own needs and desires and completely reject the compassion of others. I stopped walking to class with a group of nice girls who had invited me to accompany them, and instead I walked by myself in an effort to prove that I was not selfish and dependent. I considered only the needs and preferences of others, even if this meant that my own needs went unmet and that my own strength was drained.
There is a healthy and spiritually acceptable balance between satisfying my own desires with no consideration for others and giving so much of myself that there is no self left to give. One extreme is utter selfishness. The other is not admirable selflessness but pathological selflessness, extremely unhealthy, and not at all within the teachings of Jesus. This kind of selflessness is motivated by a sense of inferiority and a need to prove that I am not selfish--a selfish need for the approval of other people. It results in feelings of resentment, bitterness, anger, etc.
The selflessness which Jesus taught is motivated by love and dedication to a cause-- specifically, the cause of Christ. What is given--sacrificed--is given because the giver has an absolute sense of completeness in Christ and self-worth based on the fact that God's grace and love supply all the self-worth needed for this life.
The inferiority complex which I had developed was a very important issue in my spiritual journey and in my coming to terms with blindness. Many things caused me to feel inferior at times, but the one which never went away and which I could not change was my blindness. I could not work to improve the amount of visionI have, even though I could learn to use it to a maximum degree within its limitations. Unless God chose to heal me, I would always be inferior to most people in this respect. Blindness didn't necessarily devalue me as a person; I still had the ability to think and adapt my methods of doing things. I could lead a fairly full life in spite of it. But in today's independent and often selfish society, anything that imposes limitations or dependency upon a person is considered an inferior characteristic--sometimes even a tragedy. It was painful and sometimes traumatic to be confronted with these attitudes; and they reinforced my feelings of inferiority.
Frustrated by the lack of improvement in my social situation and my apparent inability to conquer my selfishness, I sought counseling during my freshman year at Anderson University, where I was studying music and ministry. My counselor encouraged me to continue reaching out, stating that she felt I was bright and sociable and that perhaps the problem was other people's discomfort with physical differences. I continued engaging in discussions about various topics with other students when opportunities arose. One of these discussions exposed the depth of my feelings of inferiority.
I and my classmates were quite naive but used the buzz words of the Christian faith with ease. I found that often portions of the Bible were quoted out of context. One night in February, 1991, as a group of girls from my dorm were holding a discussion in my room, a girl stated that healing was an experience which naturally followed salvation. I could feel my face redden with anger. The implication of her statement was that if I was really saved, I would have been healed of my blindness! Who was she to judge me, and where had God promised this? If she was right, then what was wrong with me? I was a good girl. I prayed often--even several times a day. I didn't always read my Bible, but I didn't know anyone who did. I didn't say hurtful things. I never questioned whether Jesus died to save me. But I was blind!
Desperate for understanding, I challenged her statement. "Maybe God doesn't always heal," I said. "I was born early, and I'm alive. That's the miracle He gave when my parents prayed."
"Are you sure your parents didn't just say, 'As long as You let her live?'" she asked.
Anger erupted inside me. My parents' instruction was the foundation of my faith. How could she tear that foundation down by questioning their faith? She didn't even know them!
I was deeply troubled. What if all that my parents had taught me was wrong? What if I was not really a Christian? What if my parents had never really prayed with faith for my healing? I consulted my pastor, my uncle, my professors... I even started reading the Bible excessively, searching desperately for the truth about healing. In April, I summoned my courage to ask God to heal me. I became convinced that I had heard a promise in my mind, and I began to believe that He would heal me in time.
I tried to believe that healing could come at any time, but I struggled with feelings of disappointment and doubt. In July, 1991, I discovered the passage in the ninth chapter of John where Jesus tells the disciples that the reason that a man was born blind was so that the work of God could be displayed in him. I knew that Jesus had then healed the man, but I tried to content myself with the idea that the work of God did not have to be healing. It could be anything that brought other people into His Kingdom.
However, when I lost my vision that year, I began to find reading the Bible very difficult, especially when it led to reading about someone who had been healed. My idea for self-soothing had failed.
Why would God want me to be blind? Why wouldn't He want the best for me? Why would He want me to have a disability which would prevent me from accomplishing tasks that other people take for granted--a disability which forced me into a role of dependence on other people who, more often than not, would rather not be bothered or who treat me as an inferior being worthy only of pity and patronizing compliments about how brave I am? And if this wasn't what He wanted for me, then why did He allow it? He is my Father. Wouldn't every father in his right mind want the very best for his child?
As I asked myself these questions during the weeks following the reappearance of the gray curtain, I continued attending classes at Anderson University, where I was preparing for music ministry. Strangely, one of my classes was called "Christian Understanding of Human Experience." Taught by Don Collins, the campus pastor, sessions often felt more like a large discussion group than a class. This was the primary reason why I enjoyed the class. On October 23, the discussion met me where I was.
"Why should we believe in God?" Don asked. The room was silent--most of us were still thinking about the subject matter academically. Don was not. He began to tell us about a former student who had dome into his office one day with a complaint. She could not concentrate in her Bible class. He asked if anything important had happened to her recently.
"How did you know?" she asked. She began to tell him her story. While walking to the grocery store, her father was hit by a drunk driver. At the hospital, she prayed, believing what several verses promise: that whatever she asked in Jesus' name she would receive.
Her father died.
"I really don't believe there is a God," she told Don.
Tears filled my eyes, and I fought to keep them inside. I began to shake uncontrollably, and I heard no more of the discussion. I knew only that I understood why she had been struggling. Why did God take away my remaining vision when I had prayed specifically for healing? It wasn't enough that I didn't get healed. He had to take away the little I had. What kind of God was this that I devoted my life to? Was He even there?
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