My Miracle

Since the last time I wrote I had had some hard times. Still depressed a lot and often unable to focus. But I had good reason, I thought. The stresses in my life... just one of them would be enough to really upset many people. All things considered, I was surviving rather well.
Then one day I went blind. During class I went completely blind for thirty minutes. The professor went nuts - kind of entertaining. You should try it if you ever have a slow class... kidding! When I could see again, I could only see the bottom half of my regular field of vision, and that half was a mess. Sometimes I saw spots. Sometimes I saw messed-up colors. Sometimes I saw double. It was a complete alternate reality.
After three days in the emergency room, the doctors concluded there was nothing physically wrong with me. I had a rare side effect of post traumatic stress disorder that often happens a year after the trauma (I got back from Ghana in May of 08). Basically, my body had decided I'd seen enough! I was pretty upset. I didn't know what could be going on inside to cause this - I thought I was doing better. To make matters worse, I had decided last summer not to go to counseling, because I felt I just needed to go to God. Like I said in November, I know all the right answers, but they couldn't take away the pain. Only God could do that. Now everyone could see that going to God didn't work.
For three weeks I lived in this alternate visual reality. Let me tell you how hard it is to do homework when you can't read or write! Then one day I got to church early and decided to pray outside for a while. As I was praying, I felt this intense bitterness and anger well up inside of me. It was a Friday night, and people were running around, talking on their cell phones, going to fancy dinners, going out, with no thought that their whole world could collapse in an instant and everything would be gone. I felt hopeless. It wasn't like God couldn't do something with these people, but I didn't see that He was and did didn't believe He would. The feeling bothered me, especially since I realized it's been in me since Ghana. I haven't had the heart to serve God because I lost hope that He'd really do something in the lives of the people I cared about. But, probably like I'd done for a year, I brushed it aside and went to church.
During the alter call I was praying in my seat when God suddenly transported me back to Ghana. There was a moment, about my third week there, when I was really praying about everything I'd seen so far and for everyone I'd met. Then it was like my prayers got bigger and bigger until I was praying for the whole continent. I got completely overwhelmed by the immensity of the problem of Africa in general. I knew God could move, but I didn't see Him working. I remember praying in that moment, "God, show me the hope. You have to show me the hope." I didn't feel like He did. When God brought me back to that moment, I realized that it was there that my hope had died.
Standing there in church, I began to pray the same prayer. "Ok, God," I said, "You showed me this for a reason. Now You have to show me the hope. It's killing me." God said, "Open your eyes."
I opened my eyes, and saw a sea of people down at the alter. Some were praying for each other, others were pouring out their hearts to God, others were smiling a smile that could only be explained by a touch from God. God said, "There's your hope." I realized I'd seen this scene every week, but never seen it for the miracle it was. It was so beautiful - I probably looked sac religious as I just openly stared. God was working in these people's lives.
About ten minutes later I realized my vision had been completely restored.