“I’m getting dizzy again.”

My dad tightened his grip on the steering wheel, trying to focus his attention on the road ahead. I looked at his eyes. They hid furtively behind the special post-surgery sunglasses that shielded his dilated pupils.

Such is the effect of having eye surgery for the sixth time.

He rubbed them with caution as if trying to lull the pain to sleep, but the sting would not go away. Like an insomniac refusing to go to bed, his blurred vision remained.

Diabetes.

As the car weaved its way through traffic, like a snail traversing a path of scattered pebbles, I lay half awake in the passenger seat of our mid-sized SUV.

“How was school?” he asked half-heartedly, trying to divert my attention away from his failing vision.

“Fine.”

It was the same response I had given him for the last twelve years of my life. In any case, we weren’t really in the mood for talking. Rain tends to do that sometimes.

The light shower had just settled after soaking the air with its misty presence. Then, like the Red Sea, the muted gray clouds suddenly parted, allowing some sunlight to escape, revealing the miracle within: a rainbow. As I gazed upon it, I thought about us. People. How we’re always so busy, intent on getting to our destinations—all 1,111 of them. It made me realize that rarely do we stop to see how blessed we are to even be able to perceive a rainbow—with colors so real we could consume them, reveling in the satisfaction the pastel hues bring. The delicious thought tantalized my brain for a second, only to flee as hastily as it had come.

Sigh.

            Exhaling bottled up stress and agony, he allowed an unmitigated breath to escape his exhausted body. His gaze intensified, focused on following the lines of the road as he guided us home.

            Ever notice the lanes on a freeway? Each one is divided from the lane next to it by a series of broken dashes. They are like footprints left by a child hopping along the sand…“but to what end?” I asked myself. Where do the dashes end? I started to count them. One, two, five, eleven, twenty-four…I lost track. No matter. I was tired. My eyes were dry. I wanted sleep.

            As I closed my eyes, allowing the soothing moisture under my eyelids to coat my arid pupils, my dad uttered words that would affect my life forever.

            “Son, one day I’m not going to be here for you. When that day comes, I want you to know that I raised you as best as I could, and that I’m proud you’ve grown to love life and God. Very proud.”

            With that, my whole world changed.

Like his vision, mine became one big blur—affected by the tears that had sprung in my eyes. He kept talking, telling me how much I meant to him, and how much he loved me. I can’t remember what else he said, but I do remember this. These thoughts. These words.

            I love you.

He stopped the car.

“Look at me.”

I turned, half afraid of what I would find. He removed the protective sunglasses only to reveal a pair of black pearls. His pupils were disproportionately large. It was like looking into the eyes of a terrified child.

My lips trembled as he spoke.

“There’s something wrong with me. You know I’m sick. I really need you to do something for me. I need you to pray for me.”

Me? My mind raced as swiftly as my heart. What could I possibly do? How could I give him health, something I did not have power over? Questions inundated my mind as I tried to think of something to say—something to break the silence. All that escaped my mouth was: ok.

And so we sat there, shivering, just the two of us. Our eyes were closed, but I could visualize the cars speeding past our stationary vehicle. The car shook every time a larger one zipped by. I didn’t know what to say. I began with the words I had been familiar with for all my life.

Dear God.

The comfort those two words brought was startling.

I realized instantly that I was speaking…to God. The feeling was eerie, but I knew that he was listening, and so I went on. Again, my memory fails me, and I do not remember my exact words. But I do remember this: God heard.

A week later, we were notified that the surgery had been a success. His vision would gradually return to its normal state. Whether it would remain like that indefinitely was dubious, but that didn’t matter. I had finally learned the power of prayer. 

However, this enlightening revelation came with one entirely opposite to it—one that was as depressing as the former had been joyful. I realized that my entire life…I had ignored my father.

He had always been a speck in the corner of my eye—a blur that I knew was there, but as time passed, came to ignore. In effect, he was an accidental mark left by a wandering pencil—his face a smudge of gray I chose to ignore.

I ignored his eyes—eyes coerced into the submission of surgery. As if cloaked by a wicked veil of red, they were infested by spidery streaks of blood—webs maliciously spun to poison his vision. However, no matter how many times he had to have replacement retinas, pseudo pupils, and counterfeit corneas…he never wasted time—he devoted his eyes to me.

As we continued to drive home, traversing the dotted lines one by one, I felt the power of his eyes. They moved me to silence, but the quiet was comforting.

Where words couldn’t possibly express the love between us, silence took its throne.

I wished that my mouth could tell him what I felt, but I realized that what I said no longer mattered. It was the feeling we shared—that ineffable comfort like a warm blanket wrapped around our shoulders.

Happiness consumed me. A lone tear penetrated my previously impregnable barricade, falling slowly, leaving a glistening trail in its wake. I was in tears.

In the anguish of his operations, in all his insurmountable struggles, I had never shed one tear. Not one. I felt fragile, paralyzed, and weak. Despite all he had gone through, I had overlooked him. For the past few years, he had simply been the speck in the corner of my eye. A blur so faint, he had nearly disappeared. But now, because of the tear that spoke a thousand silent words, my blindness was washed away. It was at that moment I finally became aware of the man whom I called father.

And so, as I sat next to him—helpless, pathetic, clinging—his eyes captured me. Gazing into the depths of his jet-blacks, it hit me.

The last twelve years, I had thought that he was losing his sight. I never realized that the whole time, there had been only one blind person.

Me.

                                                                                INDIA 2K6         

I’ve always been told to have great expectations in whatever I do. Not one to ignore seemingly sound advice, I applied this axiom to my hopes for my short term mission to India, and thus my expectations were great. I anticipated that God would reveal himself to me through majestic and unmistakable ways—miracles, mass conversions, healings, and so on. Surmising that my India mission would change me forever, I expected God to sweep me to Broadway, perform for me the show of a lifetime, and ground my faith on the spectacle I would have witnessed.

            I was a fool.

            Naïve, immature, self-deceiving, and prideful, I limited God from the very beginning by telling Him exactly what I wanted to see and what the ransom would be for me to change my heart. I mistook God as my inferior and tried to exact from him the very things that would end up hurting me the most because they would only further fuel my incorrect perception of who God is.

            Fortunately, God did not hesitate in correcting me and instead taught me that He works in His own way and in His own time. Specifically, He revealed himself to me not through psychedelic revelations nor eye-popping miracles, but rather through equally amazing (yet formerly unappreciated) feats such as answering prayer, fostering fellowship, speaking to me through scripture, and aiding me (inadequate as I am) in understanding His gift of grace.

            God taught me all this in India and I was blessed tremendously as the trip unwound, each day bringing me one step further from my false expectations and one step closer to the ultimate truth: that I was nothing and that God was everything. God taught me that in Him I would find life fulfillment and meaning. He also revealed to me that the reason why He had planted in my heart a desire to live a life devoted to Him was not because I was someone special who had unprecedented gifts and talents, but rather, because God wanted to give me the gift of understanding who He is and how central He is to my life. I was blessed despite my unworthiness and for that I am especially grateful.

            That’s one thing that God really revealed to me throughout the course of the mission…that I was a nobody. Previously, I had thought the world of myself. Saturated with conceit and pride, I feigned modesty and was only outwardly humble—I was a poisoned apple that looked wholesome to all yet whose innards were rotten and bruised. My merits and so-called life achievements had deceived me into believing I was someone God should be privileged to use, but this manner of holding myself in such high esteem was shattered as I discovered whilst in India that I was not the superstar I thought I was. Rather, my pride had veiled my eyes from beholding my true self—a worthless corpse that has significance only in Christ. During my trip, I embraced the full meaning of Philippians 2:3…a verse I had ironically singled out as the only useless verse on the memory sheet during training. Fancy that…out of my own pride, I foolishly sequestered the very verse that would impact, challenge, and change me the most.

            Coincidence? I think not. I believe in a God who is omnipotent…not in a God dependent on chance to make things work. What I learned in India I consider to be of great value to me and I would once more be a fool to disregard my life lessons as ephemeral side effects of an experience I believe I can create whenever I want. Such a mentality is not only wrong but spiritually fatal as God does not work in waves—waxing and waning at our choosing. Rather, God is the high tide that never regresses…filling our hearts to the brim with His grace and refusing to let us go once we comprehend how He is the rightful owner of us and our lives.