This is an overdue post. Glad I finally found the time to share it with ya'll!
In the past month, I've experienced prayer, accompanied by the laying on of hands, three different times. Each instance was very powerful and I want to share those with you, particularly one of them.
If you read my previous post, you know I spent five days in Mexico City last month for our FOCUS Mission Trip Leadership Summit. On the last day of training, the 12 of us spent some time praying for each other and our respective trips. One by one, each one of us would get a turn standing in the center of a circle with the rest of the missionaries crowded around, laying hands on the missionary being prayed for.
As hands fell all over me and Jeff, Tom, and Tim each prayed aloud for myself, my mission trip, my team, and all the students attending, a tremendous amount of peace filled my soul. Not only was I fully aware of the support and prayers I was receiving from my fellow FOCUS missionaries, but I could almost literally feel the presence of something spiritual. The Holy Spirit was certainly present.
A week after my return, Justin and I through a Men's night at our house. Following a personal testimony and talk given by DeonAlex Walton and David Badami, we did something similar to the above. We split off into groups of three or four men and had some prayer time. We shared with one another what we were struggling with (certain sins, learning to trust in God, tough time in school, family problems, etc.) and took turns having the other guys lay hands on us and offer up some prayers. Again, I experienced the same thing as in Mexico. How tremendously blessed I am to have men like this in my life!
The 3rd experience is the one I'm most excited to share with you! 'Cause this prayer was, in a way, answered.
I'll premise this story with a quick background about my right eye. When I was 12 years old, I got a finger to the eye while playing basketball at boy scouts. Long story short: Ouch. Can't See. Hospital. Healed up naturally. Back to normal. Retina detaches after two years. Nine surgeries. I'm still broken.
I'm currently about 85% blind in my right eye. It took a little while to get used to, but after many years, I'm pretty normal. I do normal activities, most people don't know I'm blind, and I can play the "blind card" (haha).
But I am different. If you're not blind then you probably won't understand this, but it's hard being the only one around with one eye. In big social events, I hate meeting new people because eye contact is extremely important in those situations and their is nothing I can do to make good eye contact. My right eye sometimes does it's own thing and when I am looking at person A, person A thinks I'm looking at person B behind them. That's frustrating. But it's all good. I deal with it.
So back to prayer and laying on of hands! I promise that all of that was essential to the story.
A few days before I went to Mexico City, I went to the gym on campus to work out. As I walked in, I see a friend of mine, Kris Hepburn, talking to a young lady that I did not know. We all start talking and somehow (I think Kris was making fun of me) this young lady (Estrella was her name) hears that I am blind in my right eye. Not knowing that I am a Catholic missionary or even into my faith at all, she asks me, "Can I pray over you?"
Whoa! We're in the middle of the gym! Imagine the witness! So I said yes.
What I didn't know was that she was going to lay her hands on me. So we're standing in the middle of the gym and she puts her hand on my face and starts praying out loud, asking God for healing. When she was done, we talked a little more and then she left. That was it.
Well the Lord works in mysterious ways sometimes and often answers our prayers in ways we don't expect. Fast forward to Mexico. My buddy, Jeff Runyan, who is leading the trip, has also mentored me for the past year and a half. Though we live in different parts of the country, I've known him for 2 years and we talk on the phone every other week. But for some reason, God was waiting until this trip to reveal something to us, which was also going to be an answer to Estrella's prayer.
After practicing a "get to know you" exercise for our missions trips in which I told the group 3 facts about myself, the fact that I was blind in my right eye most certainly came up. A little later, Jeff pulls me aside...
"Dude, you're blind in your right eye? Me too!"
No way. Boom.
I'm not alone.
Am I still blind in my right eye? Yes. But did God answer Estrella's prayer? Yes. As I said before, God answers prayers in ways we don't expect. There is no reason for God to heal my eye. He could if he wanted to, but I'm just fine without it. I can do all the things that everyone else does, why do I need two eyes? If anything, it's a constant reminder of my humanity - a reminder that I am not perfect and I never will be. And if God wants to do something great with me, he doesn't need two eyes, he just needs my heart.
The heart is exactly what was healed. It was the answer to Estrella's prayer. I was healed. An internal healing, if you will. I'm not alone.
To Him be the glory!
