by Stephanie Green
 
     I am blind, and sometimes it is difficult for people to associate my blindness with God’s love. Some Christians I meet suggest I “go for healing.” They believe if I simply ask Him, Jesus will restore my sight. They quote Bible passages about Jesus healing the blind, which he did in great abundance—and good on him for doing so. But these Christians read about Jesus’ healing, and they suppose that my sole purpose in life is to be healed of my blindness so others will look at me and say, “Oooooooh, God really does work miracles!”

They’re not trying to be cruel; they just want to help me. They assume I need help. They pity me because I can’t see this beautiful world. They know that would make them sad, so they figure I must be sad. If she could see, they think, she’d never be sad about anything again.

Tragic
     This correlates with a disturbing theme I’ve noticed throughout literature. Authors portray blindness as the ultimate tragedy, as a punishment for sin. Oedipus blinded himself as punishment for his incest, and Shakespeare’s Gloucester suffers blindness for his adultery.

In Kipling’s book The Light that Failed, the protagonist, Dick Heldar, learns that he is to become blind. His response? “It’s the living death. We’re to be shut up in the dark and we shan’t see anybody, and we shall never have anything we want, not though we live to be a hundred.” Throughout the book he rages at a world that is alive and seeing, and manages to get himself killed in the end. These examples are the norm, not the exception, when it comes to blind characters in literature.

Having never regarded myself as a tragic figure or someone suffering punishment from God for my sins, this attitude annoys me. And I don’t think God is this mean-spirited. If I hate being blind, then I have to hate The Person who made me blind. I can’t do that. God’s a pretty clued-up fellow; He made me blind for a reason—the same way He gave me brown hair, green eyes, and a fondness for sausage rolls. He knows what He’s doing, and who am I to question his process?

The Bible even has a word to say about blindness being a punishment for sin. In John 9, Jesus is walking with his disciples when he meets a man who was born blind. His disciples ask him, “‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’” (John 9:2, NIV).

“ ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life’ ” (John 9:3, NIV).

Jesus tells us this man’s blindness is not a result of any sins committed by him or his parents. Rather, the implication is that God made him blind so Jesus could heal him, and John could witness it, write about it, and all the people who read this passage thereafter—blind or sighted—might understand why God allows some people to have disabilities.

I’d Take the Money
     So why am I blind? I don’t know the answer to that question. Maybe I never will know. But my eyes are part of me; they’ve shaped my life and colored my experiences. They’ve provided me with challenges to overcome, and they’ve made me a stronger, kinder, better person. If I had the choice of having new eyes installed or $5 million dollars, I’d take the money, give most of it to blindness organizations to enhance their services and promote the rights of blind people worldwide, and I’d spend the rest on sausage rolls.

My favorite Bible text is Isaiah 42:16: “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them” (NIV). And that’s exactly what God does. He has led me through hellish years of school; through an amazing, fulfilling degree in archaeology. He has led me to a job at a blindness institute that I love. He has driven me to pursue sports: rock climbing, skiing, karate, and sword fighting. He has encourage me to travel solo, and He has guided me into the arms of my husband.

My life so far is God’s real miracle. He has never steered me wrong yet, and I’d hate to second guess Him by saying “Well, thanks for the awesome life and all, but I’d really just like to see properly. If you could arrange that, I’d be ever so grateful.”

The Christians I meet don’t mean any disrespect. Not being blind, they don’t understand, and they want me to be happy. But I’m already happy! Me and God, we’re the best of buddies. And I won’t ever, ever, ever ask Him to heal me.

Stephanie Green writes from Auckland, New Zealand.