by Bart Tuma
“I don’t know, Erik. I’ve asked that myself, not only about your eyes, but at other times when things like that storm happened. I don’t have an answer.”
“Neither do I. Neither do I,” Erik almost mourned as he turned again to his image imprisoned in the windowed scene.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Bless the Lord, O my soul
And all that is within me. Bless His
Holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul
And forget none of His benefits.
Who pardons all your iniquities?
Who heals all your diseases;
Who redeems your life from the pit;
Who crowns you with loving kindness
And compassion
So that your youth is renewed like the eagles.”
Erik kept reading those words of Psalm 103. How foreign they sounded. At the same time, how much he needed them to be true. He knew the truth of the Bible, but now he didn’t know how it all worked out in the world he lived.
“The Lord …heals, redeems, satisfies your years, and renews your youth.” Those words hung with him, not as a comfort, but as a presence that neither healed him nor allowed him to forget. If he was to believe the Bible, indeed believe God, he needed to deal with those words.
He had gone to church that Sunday. He had been prayed over and anointed with oil, but there was no change in his eyesight. Now he had to deal with the reality of surgery, a reality he neither wanted nor trusted. He wanted someone to shake his shoulders and tell him that he didn’t need to do it. He wanted them to say a medicine was found, or that the Lord would still be a healer, but no one would. Not even John had any simple answers. They all advised him to have the surgery. They said God could work through surgery. To Erik, this seemed like a cop-out.
The thought of even needing a surgery was too much for him to comprehend. Why when everything is ahead of me would of God let this happen? There would also be tests to see if he was a diabetic and that, if positive, could mean other complications. Somehow, God had not dealt with what was before Erik, and it left Erik feeling as if he had to deal with it alone.
Erik wasn’t being a coward. It wasn’t the knife of surgery that bothered him. It was the fact that he once again seemed alone. There is no such thing as a coward or a hero. The only difference between the two is the hero is able to look beyond what is before him. Erik had dreamt too much in his life to look beyond this. He had seen too many dreams vanish and now the outcome seemed too final. He had decided to go ahead with the surgery, but it was a decision from unwillingness to fight rather than from bravery.
“Erik, can I talk to you?”
Erik jumped; as he was unaware anyone was in the bunkhouse. John came in without knocking.
“Sure, come on in.”
“I heard you decided to have the surgery Friday.”
“Yeah, they didn’t give me much of a choice. Crazy situation, isn’t it? Don’t know what to do now.”
“I wish I could give you some good suggestions, but I don’t have any,” John admitted.
“I sure wish you did. I wish someone did. Before you told me my parents found themselves in their hopelessness because they never turned their lives over to Christ. Well, here I am, a full-fledged child of God, flat on my back.”
“Doesn’t make sense, I know, Erik.”
“You’re telling me. You’re the man with all the answers. What are they?”
“I don’t have any answers. I know what’s happened doesn’t make any sense at all. Unfortunately I also know that things like this will happen again. What are your answers, Erik?”
“My answer, huh. I’m the one asking, not answering.”
“But you’re the only one who can answer, Erik. You’re the one it’s happening to, and you’re the one living with the consequences. You know God well enough. What is your answer?”
“I think I’ve got to question. It looks like a lot of those things in the Bible don’t work out in real life.”
“Like what?”
“Like, how does Christ touch our physical lives with healing? Sure, I’ve been healed before with things like headaches and colds and sniffles, but the biggies… Why can’t I be healed now? Is God too uninterested or too weak to do the big ones? Or is there something wrong with me? There are other people in church in wheelchairs. Why aren’t they healed?”
“I don’t know, Erik. I do know it has nothing to do with God’s bigness or His lack of love for you. I probably won’t understand until I get to heaven and then I have a lot of questions. But then somehow I think those questions won’t be that important. Those people will be too busy dancing and shouting for joy without wheelchairs. But you know that’s not the real question. He could heal every wheel chaired person and your eyes, and that wouldn’t be the real question or answer. The only question is if He loves you today. Does He love you enough that He cries with your pain and at the same time is He big enough to still make a future for you, healed or unhealed? If God can’t touch your life today, healing is the least of your concerns. What do you think? Does He still care? Have you given up on Him?”
“No, I sometimes wish that it would be that easy—to just get mad at Him and give up, like canceling a subscription to a magazine or something. Just tell Him I don’t want to be part of His club any longer, but God has been too good to me to just say He doesn’t matter anymore. There was a time I had to decide if I wanted to keep following Him, but that was a time back. There’s no turning back now. It just seems all vague out there. No answer from God. No hope for tomorrow. I’m just breathing, that’s all. I’d put all my hopes and dreams in going to Havre.”
“Do you think that maybe one of the problems was putting your hopes in an event rather than in Him?”
“You’re playing word games with me. I was putting my hope in Him, thinking that He wanted me to go to Havre. Now it seems like maybe He couldn’t pull it off.”
“Or maybe He had different plans. I have no idea, Erik. I’m not about to say what God’s plan for you might be. But if I were you I wouldn’t be too quick to say His plans still can’t be worked out. The only way His plans will ever be fulfilled is if you don’t abandon them by abandoning Him. You’ve told me before that you felt your mom abandoned you and your dad because she wanted more than you both had to offer. Well, don’t abandon God because He hasn’t acted like you expected Him to act. If you abandon God when He doesn’t act like you hoped, all you’re saying is you don’t like what He offers that day,” John concluded.
“You’re right, again,” Erik conceded. “This is just so unexpected. I had everything so figured out, but I never figured this could have happened. I know God. You know that I do, but I never expected this.”
“Erik, before I asked you if you felt you were strong enough to make it by yourself in Havre. Now you need to ask yourself if you’re strong enough to stay here and still believe He can work here.”
“I was strong enough when you asked me, but now it’s all different. Now there’s no chance to leave. I have to face surgery and who knows what after that. I’m stuck. About the only strength I have is to wake up tomorrow.”
“That’s a start. What if God wanted you to stay here in Fairfield and work on the farm and make a life here? What if He had dreams for you here?”
“You mean God took my eyesight to make me stay?”
“No, God didn’t do this. Don’t even entertain that thought. This happened because it did. People get sick in this world. It happens to everyone, Christian or not. What I mean is that God is big enough that He still has dreams for you and those dreams are even better than you could imagine. Could you cooperate in that plan by still giving Him a place here or do you think He can’t reach you in Fairfield?”
“Something good here?” Erik asked, skeptical.
“Yeah, to have things you were so excited about come true here on the farm. You dreamt to make a mark, to find a wife, to have a child and build your own home. That can
happen here. Your tomorrow didn’t end just because the trip to Havre didn’t come off. Who knows what the future holds? You didn’t expect this to happen. Give room for unexpected good things to happen.”
“But, I can’t even work the farm if I’m blind.”
“If you’re blind. No one said that it’s certain. You’re only thinking the worst. There’s going to be surgery Friday. Let God still work through that surgery, and remember the doctor said there was a chance your other eye would stay good.”
“A chance. My chances haven’t gone very well lately.”
“Erik, hold onto that chance. You’re a dreamer, now dream. Don’t let this be an end because you can no longer dream. Now you have the Lord of the universe to give legs to those dreams.”
“But it seems so hopeless.”
“If my whole life hinged on the outcome of one last bet, I’d sure bet on my Lord and His dreams for me. He’s the surest thing around, even when you can’t see His working.”
“I guess I don’t really have a choice, do I? I’d run or go someplace else if I had a choice, but there’s no place to go, and no one who would take me if I got there. I’ll hope in Him, but that’s all I can do. I’ll hope, but I can’t say I believe yet.”
Erik wasn’t over-confident. He had heard things before and had determined things in his mind before. Later those decisions were tested. Now the test was stronger and he didn’t know if he was strong enough. He was the one who had lost his sight, and he was the one whose life would hinge on that bet. Was God big enough and still caring for Erik’s life? Now he could only wait to see the outcome.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Two months passed since Erik first learned of his eye problems. He had the surgery and his good eye developed bleeders soon after and it too required the same surgery. The time had come and gone for him to go to school and he hadn’t. The doctors were supposed to know what the outcome of the surgery was by now, but they didn’t. Erik was supposed to be able to see out of his bad eye, but he couldn’t.
His eyes were still filled with the remnants of the hemorrhage. Some of the weaker vessels had been removed so there was the chance the blood would naturally drain from the eye over time. However, there was the question of whether the blood would drain or new blood would leak from new bleeders. There was also the question on how much damage the center of the retina had sustained. If the damage was too severe, even if no blood was present, there might be no sight.
As the doctor had stated, the procedure was new and no guess could be made as to its outcome. The one emotion that was constantly with Erik was uncertainty. He knew only of that day. He knew that the time for school to start had passed, and that there was no sight in his eyes. As for tomorrow, it was hidden along with his vision.
It had been a shock at first when the second eye became as the first. It seemed as if his fears were realized and his hopes dimmed along with his sight. Then he rationalized that the second eye shouldn’t have been a surprise. He knew the possibility of blindness all too well, and it might well have been his own fault for not having the eye cared for earlier. The doctor had talked of his prospects in terms that sounded much like the odds of horse racing. Erik didn’t listen to the doctors any longer. He only relied on what he could or could not see. He could not see tomorrow so he did not trust it.
Days had passed since the first news of his eyes, and so had many of the emotions. He no longer was held in shock by the news. It was impossible to come to grips with the future since the future was so unknown. He tried to think of a plan or possibilities for the rest of his life, but there were no avenues to be found. He knew that he simply could not feel sorry for himself the rest of his life. At the same time, he did not know what the rest of his life would look like if his vision was completely lost.
He had begun to spend a considerable amount of time by the large oak tree that stood next to the coulee. He spent time with people also; he talked with the Coopers and John about what would happen now. Even the people of Fairfield and former classmates would make the drive to the Coopers farm to wish Erik well and give him cards that said the same. Laurie looked somewhat guilty when she came by, as if she should have given Erik more of a chance. Erik quickly ended that conversation since he didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him. He felt sorry enough for himself, he didn’t need anyone to add to it.
Erik had no reason to feel alone in what he was going through since there were many people coming to him. Yet, at the same time, he was aware that he must go through this time absolutely alone. The word “loneliness” could not be used to describe his present condition. The stark reality of living in a world without sight was beyond an over-used abstraction. He was simply alone. The prayers and help of the people were necessary, but the reality was only his. Only he could experience waking up in the morning and not being able to focus on the walls.
The Coopers had given him a cassette player and Scripture tapes that covered most of the Bible. This gift might have seemed premature since he still had vision in his one eye, but that vision was fading and the small print Bible that he had worn out for the past two years quickly tired his eye. He played those tapes for hours, and had begun to memorize portions of their content. However, there came a time when he even had to turn the cassettes off.
The Scripture had been a source of strength and hope and understanding, but even those words could not make answers for him. Only his belief in those words, not just their printing, would bring reality to Erik. He knew the reality of losing his sight. Now he had to accept the reality of what he could see, not only with his eyes, but with his heart. He needed belief if those words were to mean anything.
He remembered Laura many times. He knew her problem. He knew that she had shut out God because of her feelings of guilt. Now for Erik it was hard to not feel isolated with his blindness. He remembered John’s words of warming that Laura risked losing her joy of His presence if she didn’t lay aside blaming herself for what had happened, and feeling guilty for turning her back on God. Now Erik had to lay aside the disappointment of an unfulfilled future.
As he sat once again by the big oak at an hour approaching evening, Erik thought over his life. There were no highlights that would make his life notable. There were those football games in high school, but those were for a little school in a small town. Besides that, there was nothing other people could see. Everything that had been impressive in his life had happened inside, in his spirit. No one else could see how God had touched him in that pickup. No one would have noticed God with him on Chief Mountain and the depth of Erik’s convictions. No one even knew of his thoughts and feelings for Laura. Everything that made a difference could not be seen with eyes, but only felt with the Spirit.
He thought over the times when he rode the tractor, lay on his bed, or walked the meadows of the coulee. At those times he had added color and vitality to this bland, colorless land. Those times had nothing to do with what he saw, but what he believed God had created. God had created within him an imagination to dream. He remembered driving the tractor through clouds of dust as he had sat at the wheel shouting as a pastor addressing the assembled congregation. There were the times when he had gone to the alkali lake and skipped rocks over the lifeless water. At that moment, it wasn’t lifeless water; it was the sea with waves breaking to the beaches. There were times when he would go to the highest point on the farm and look for miles over the wheat-filled strips and barbed wired fences, but to his inner eyes they were not filled with dust. He was on his mountain amidst the mountain meadows. Somehow Erik had built a kingdom out of the dreams of God’s promised fulfillment, and he did not see the desolation, but desolation brought to beauty and life.
As he reflected, his first thoughts were of how foolish he had been. They were only dreams and they had taken him nowhere. He had spent years visiting those dreams. Yet, somehow, they encircled him that day.
He reasoned they were fantasies and nothing else. He knew they would be erased as soon as the
next gust of wind brought dust to his face. They were mirages that were common in the summer sun, but empty to the touch. He thought more and he prayed.
“Christ I’ve held my dreams as if they were real and I know they weren’t. It’s strange because as I look at those fantasies it makes me realize how real You are. I know the fantasies and I know Your presence and they share nothing in common. I guess because I can see the façade I can easy identify the unmovable. My home in You is real. My hope in You will never be erased with the next gust of problems. Your beauty goes before this land. This land is almost not fit to be inhabited, but my life is not this land. It is Your hope. I saw Laura wrestle with that hope as if it had been left behind, but I also saw that hope never leave her life. I can no longer see the details of this farm, but I will always see the beauty of Your life. You have transformed my life. I will always look to Your land. I will see the Kingdom You have established within my heart.”
He remembered that Paradise Lost quote that his uncle had used: ‘The mind is its own place; in itself it can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven’.
“The poet’s wrong,” Erik thought. “The difference isn’t how a person’s mind perceives the world. The mind can make you think things you don’t believe. The difference is seeing the Ruler of the land. The difference is Who rules my world. My life can be either the reality of this empty land, or the paradise of my Father’s Kingdom. I can’t make this land a paradise. His life within me can.”