“So, out of curiosity… if you had to put a number to my eyesight, what would you guess?” 

My eye doctor made a pensive face.

“Something around twenty over eight hundred. Maybe a thousand? Honestly, it’s hard to say,” he responded with a chuckle.

I laughed along too, but inwardly I cringed.

He was confirming what I had known for years.

I had the eyesight of Mister Magoo.

And I hated it.

I’d worn glasses since grade school, and my vision had only worsened from there.

By my twenties I couldn’t function without a thick pair of lenses.

Starting at 18, I checked every year to see if I qualified for LASIK eye surgery.

And every year the answer was no.

Until I turned 30.

I finally got the green light.

I got the surgery as soon as I could.

And it worked perfectly…

for about six months.

Then the nightly dry eye began.

Sometimes one of my kids would wake me up in the middle of the night. I’d forget for a split second and rip my dried eyelids open.

Other nights even the movement of my eyes during REM sleep was enough to tear at the surface of my corneas. 

Either way, searing pain and endless tears would follow.

Eventually managing it required a whole routine.

Thick eye gel.
Eye mask.
A nightstand humidifier.
And a few minutes of massaging each eye in the morning before starting my day.

Around the same time I got LASIK, God began encouraging me to pray for other peoples’ healing.

Over the months that followed, this included plenty of others with eyesight problems:

Diabetic glaucoma.
Cataracts.
Partial blindness.
Ending with glasses and contacts being permanently thrown away.

I was thrilled for them all.

Underneath my excitement was always the same thought:

I wish I had been more patient.

Recently, I was standing in the bathroom getting ready to do my nighttime eye-care routine when I finally had enough.

“Lord, I hate doing this. What should I do?” 

Pray.

I put my hands over my eyes and commanded my tear ducts and everything connected to my eyes to work properly in Jesus’ name.

Fill the sink.

Okay.

I plugged the drain and filled it with water.

Put your face in and open your eyes.

So I did.

Face in.

Eyes open.

Stung like crazy.

“Thank You Lord for healing my eyes. Thank You that my tear ducts are producing what they should.”

Then God had me do it twice more before drying off a final time.

Leaving my eye gel and everything else untouched on the bathroom counter, I reached for the door.

Then I stopped with my hand on the handle.

“Lord, I’m scared that this is going to hurt a lot tonight… but I trust You.”

Then I opened the door.

Praying for healing feels different when you feel like the problem:

You pick up a bad habit.
Ignore the warning signs.
Mistreat your body.
Make a decision you later regret.

When health problems arise, the first question feels obvious:

Well… what did I expect?

I made the choice.

The consequences are set.

Learn the workarounds. Live with it.

Without ever deciding God can’t heal me, I stopped expecting Him to.

I went to bed that night without the gel, mask or humidifier.

The next morning?

No tearing. No pain.

I just opened my eyes.

It’s been the same every morning since.

I had regretted getting LASIK without ever asking God about it.

And because the dry eye came afterward, I treated it like the price I had to pay.

But healing is not a reward for making the right decisions. 

Jesus didn’t wait until we deserved His goodness before giving Himself for us.

Our choices can have real consequences in this world.

Those consequences do not nullify Jesus’ sacrifice or His authority.

Your mistake might explain how the problem started.

It does not change what Jesus paid to fix it.

Until next time,
Addison