A few weeks ago, I had a serious health scare. It started on a Friday with seeing flashes of light in my peripheral vision. Then Sunday evening through my left eye I saw clouds of blood and big swirling floaters. No bueno.
A quick visit to the internet revealed the possible culprit: retinal tear or detachment, which are both very serious and can lead to loss of vision.
First thing Monday I found my way to an ophthalmologist specializing in retinas. He determined that (by the grace of God) my retina was not detached yet but torn. He told me if I had waited, it could have totally detached and that would have been very bad, requiring much serious treatment.
As it turned out, he performed laser surgery right there in his office to repair the tear. I’m still recovering from the blood that remained in my eye following the tear and which continued to obstruct my vision, but over the last few weeks my eye has steadily improved.
When this started on that Sunday evening, I began spending a lot of time in the Word, more specifically in three different passages of the Bible, and I saw some things about adversity I had not seen before. Sometimes, the Lord has to take us to a specific place to hear certain things. For Paul it was the “third heaven” where he heard inexpressible things he was not permitted to speak (2 Cor. 12:2-4); for many of us that place is adversity.
Jesus hinted at this phenomena when he talked about the people who listened to Him but did not hear Him. He often prefaced difficult truths with, “Let those who have ears to hear, hear.” See e.g. Matt. 11:15.
Adversity is not a place any of us want to visit, but when we find ourselves there, we should take advantage of it, seek God, and listen.
What follows in the next few posts is some of what I recently heard in the place of adversity. I hope it is some comfort to you the next time you are there. GS