Tim is 43 years old. When he was six, he was accidently shot in the left eye by his brother who thought his pellet gun was empty. After surgery and forty-five days in the hospital, Tim was left with essentially no vision in his left eye. He told me the story when I was giving him a ride home one afternoon.
When we arrived at Tim's house, I asked Tim if he would let me pray for him. He said yes. So with us sitting in my car, he let me put my hand over his bad eye, and I prayed.
It happened this way...
After the first time of prayer, Tim said he saw some light or something on the far left side of his eye, a sensation he said he'd never had, but he didn't seem the least bit excited. To be honest, I almost missed the significance of his report, partly because his reaction was so matter-of-fact, and partly because I guess I really wasn't expecting much to happen. But I quickly realized the Lord was doing something really wonderful and we needed to press in a bit more. So, remembering that Jesus had to pray twice for a blind man (Mark 8:22-26), I went after it again.
After the second time, Tim covered up his good (right) eye and said he "I think I see your car keys." I told him to reach out and touch the keys, and this he did, albeit haltingly. I asked him what he saw on my dashboard; he said he saw a dog (we keep two plastic dogs up there), and he reached out and touched one dog. He said he saw the various instruments on the dashboard.
I prayed two more times; each time he got more vision in that blind eye. By the time he got out of the car, he was using his "blind" eye to identify cars, trees, parts of the house he lived in, and so on, and it was dawning on him that he really could see - he started to get happy!
After thirty-seven years of no vision, the Lord Jesus restored Tim's eyesight.
Tim is a pre-Christian. I am praying that because of what Jesus did for him, Tim will also see that Jesus is life itself, and will open his heart and receive real life in Him. That would be the best story of all.
-Michael R.
