I Was Blind But Now I See

Today marks the Feast of Saint Lucy, the patron saint of the blind. It also marks my birthday and anniversary.

I began praying the Novena to St. Lucy on December 4th, asking for the gift of healing of both my spiritual blindness and my physical eyesight problems. I’ve been nearsighted since third grade and have an astigmatism as well that adds to it. In September of 2019, though, I began experiencing double vision.

Praying for the Grace to Surrender

This year’s been rough financially. Project after project we conceived but aborted before it could be born. Proposal after proposal we submitted but ended up being rejected.

The financial strain put me on my knees, praying surrender novena after surrender novena and praying the litany of trust each day to get me through without losing hope while waiting for God to deliver His answer His way.

It’s left us two months behind on rent, strapped as tight as we’ve been in a long time for cash, and left us forced to depend on the generosity of many others for rides, for food, and for a roof over our heads. It's forced me to learn to rely solely on God’s providence and His timing.

Searching for a Deeper Connection

This period of trial led me to search for a deeper connection to God as I struggled to understand His will for my life, I came across a YouTube video called The Urgency of Mental Prayer in which the speaker explained the art of mental prayer. It’s a way of deeply connecting with Christ through Scripture and the imagination. I began employing those techniques in my daily life and found myself making strides.

While listening to a Christian pastor giving a talk, he said a line from Scripture that caught my attention, “Repent and go back to what you were doing at first.” – Revelation 2:5 That was spoken to the Church at Ephesus, which John the Apostle founded. They were doing everything right but they’d lost the love of Christ in their hearts, and without that love their works were meaningless.

I wanted to go back to doing what I’d been doing when my love for Christ was at its strongest. That November 5th, I picked back up with a 40-day Total Consecration to Jesus Through Mary devotion that I’d done in January of 2008. This devotion led me to rededicate myself to Mary so that through her I could grow in my devotion to Christ.

An Answer to Many Prayers

I love journals, and I am a huge proponent of daily journaling. The first gift I received this morning came from my husband. It was the Insights Journal from Ascension Press. Given that I’d been praying for the last nine days that God would help me heal my spiritual blindnesses, I considered this an answer to a prayer.

But God wasn’t done giving me gifts. After completing most of my daily prayer routine, I engaged in mental prayer over today’s Scripture readings, taken from Matthew 11:28-30:

“Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened; I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon yourselves, and learn from me; I am gentle and humble of heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

While engaging in mental prayer, I wrote, “How much I long to rest in the Lord, to do what brings me joy without concern about what it costs or how I will live if I do.”

I could see Jesus looking at me over the other members of the crowd gathered around Him, knowing my fears, my anxieties around taking the leap of faith required to surrender everything to Him. He knows my dilemma and He asks me, “Do you trust me?”

Part of me does. Part of me fears letting go and allowing Christ to decide my fate and determine my destiny. Part of me wearies of feeling like a financial burden or an inconvenience to others. I know that surrender means humbling myself and continuing to accept that I will need help from others, that I must rely on Him and Him alone, accepting and surrendering to His will. His providence must be the only wealth I claim.

And I must choose between my desire to walk with him and my fear. “I surrender, Lord.”

In this moment, the dots connect together. I receive a sudden epiphany. My prayers of many months are answered, though not as I expected them to be.

Understanding the Lightened Yoke

Relying fully on God’s providence as you do the work that you were created to do is what makes the burden light and the yoke easy – you’re doing the work that brings you joy and handing the troubles and burdens to Him.

No more is it required that I figure out how to solve the problems on my own or bending my back to carry the heavy loads. It is merely a case of turning the problems and burdens over to Him, asking His guidance in solving or carrying them. The burdens and responsibilities becomes His. I am free to do what I was born to do and love doing so much I never want to quit doing it.

The overwhelming generosity of a God who loves us so much that He would offer to carry our burdens on our behalf fills me. Living my life this way frees me to fulfill my purpose and to do the work that fills me with joy and doesn’t even feel like work to me – to write, to teach, to connect people together – and to spend time with Him. This work is no burden at all because of the joy it brings me to do it.

Healing the Spiritual Blindness

The barrier to placing my trust in God removed, my spiritual blindness is healed. I see what I need to see to develop the trust required to get to where I need to be.

I thank St. Lucy, patron of the blind, for helping me to develop a faith like hers, a faith so bold that she willingly allowed them to gouge out her eyes rather than deny Christ. I can see why she would find the courage to do that.

No other god offers me this incredible deal: Give me your life’s problems and worries to handle, and I’ll give you work to do that you love doing so much you never want to stop doing it. How can I say no to that? It’s worth losing sight of the world to be able to remain with Christ.

In many ways, I feel like that blind man at the pool of Bethesda. Questioned by the authorities about Jesus's healing of his sight, he tells them, “All I know is that once I was blind but now I see.” – John 9:25