Now I believe I have a new direction for the blog.  So much has happened in my life and the lives of those in my family that I am now refocused.

For example, several weeks ago I experienced a sudden, dramatic loss of vision.  I suffered something called Nonarteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy (NAAION).  This is commonly described as a stroke of the optic nerve.  The results progress very rapidly and over a period of about four days, I lost much of the vision in my left eye.  I knew exactly what was going on from the start because the same thing occurred in my left eye eleven years ago which left me legally blind in that eye.  As serious as that sounds, it was really more of an inconvenience to me that anything else because my left eye remained sound.  Now, of course, I’m blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other, so to speak.

Fortunately, my left eye is not so bad as my right eye so I am not legally blind but I do have some real limitations I did not have a few weeks ago.  I cannot drive at night or in the rain and reading has become more difficult.  I need text to be larger to read comfortably.  I can still read fairly small text when I have to but doing so for any length of time is exhausting and leads to headaches.

I don’t mention all this to elicit sympathy from anyone.  On the contrary, sympathy is the last thing I need.  Indeed, what I have needed, God has graciously provided!  And that is really the point of this post and the direction I will be taking this blog.

You see, throughout this ordeal, God has given me strength.  Faithful Christians all over have prayed for me, many who don’t know me at all.  Dozens of churches have mobilized prayer warriors and their prayers have been heard and answered.  The answer has not been physical healing.  It has been greater dependence on Him.  It has been a miraculous treatment that improved my ability to read, which was almost lost entirely.  It has been the provision of thousands of dollars in equipment for the visually impaired that I could never have afforded.  And it has been in the quiet strength of my wife and partner, Jules.

I am truly blessed among men and that blessing has nothing to do with physical comforts or even physical health.  I am blessed, above all, because I know beyond all doubt that my faith in God is well founded.  I know that I can trust Him and His plan, whether I ever understand it or not.

My pastor, Buster Brown, wrote a blog post today on the subject of joy.  I’m so pleased that Buster has begun to blog.  Anyway, I was thinking about joy and it occurred to me that the struggles in my life have ultimately lead to more joy than all the successes and triumphs.  That may seem counter intuitive but the reason is that I am forced to become more dependent on God during struggles and that is right where we all need to be.  Unless we are totally dependent upon God, we will be frustrated, dissatisfied and without joy.

So now I am looking to the future, both in life and on this blog.  I know that, whether my vision stays the same, gets worse or gets better, God is in control and I will be okay.  I may not be okay in terms the world can understand but the world is not my home.  I want to work at explaining that more fully in the months to comes so stay tuned.