This week I read a story about a blind man. I can’t imagine being blind and not seeing beautiful scenes like the Coeur d’Alene River, shown in this photo.
All kinds of things ran through my mind as I bike pedaled beside this river. The first is that it once had a thriving riverboat traffic on it. Boats towed ore from nearby mines to the Inland Empire. Fortunes were made and lost, both on the river as gamblers plied their trade and in the business communities in several states. It’s a quiet river now, but it offers great beauty and stimulates the imagination of current bicyclers and walkers.
What if I could not see it? Would my imagination run riot? Or would it just be dark? How much living would I miss?
I had a friend once who was blind from birth. He was amazing. He recorded everything in his memory and everybody wanted him as their partner to play Trivial Pursuit! Wilbur loved knowledge and he knew it all! He loved life. I once tried to describe to him what a little girl’s red and white polka dot dress looked like. He told me he had no idea what I was talking about. He’d never seen colors and didn’t know how to relate with them. Wow!
Helen Keller was an amazing woman. I wondered how she could even think before Annie Sullivan opened her mind to spelled words in her hands. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t hear. How did she even think about the world around her? Yet, she became an amazing speaker, writer, scholar – Wow!
Then, Fanny Crosby—another amazing woman who never saw a sight. Yet, the music she wrote still brings sight to many, even now, decades after her death.
Wilbur, Helen, and Fanny are in heaven now. What must it have been like, after earthly death, when they opened their eyes for the first time—ever! Did it hurt at first because of the Light? What would it be like if Jesus were the first Person, the first Sight you ever saw?
When I think that there are rainbows of colors all around the Throne of God, I can’t help but wonder what Wilbur, Helen, and Fanny thought about heaven’s glories as “visions of rapture burst on their sight.”
I read in Gospel John, Chapter 9, about a blind man that Jesus healed. He did it on the Sabbath. The blind man washed his eyes and he could see. The Pharisees didn’t like it and tried to get rid of this miracle. They interrogated the blind man, his parents, then the blind man again in denouncing the miracle. Because it happened on the Sabbath. I think they would have found a reason to denounce it no matter when it happened.
But they could not take away his miracle. He said, “whether He is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know; that thought I was blind, now I see.”
They kicked him out of the synagogue, but Jesus found him and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of God?”
The answer came, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?”
Jesus said, “You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.” And the former blind man believed and worshiped Him.
Oh, that we may see Him and all His wonders and worship Him!
“And Jesus said, ‘For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.’ John 9:39.”
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