Looking for an Answer

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This has become an unwelcome yet all too familiar routine. Squinting to see, well, anything, hands shielding my face from excess light. Living an upside-down daytime nocturnal life, shades closed and sheets covering the window. Sitting on the couch like a knot on a log, unproductive, listening to the occasional podcast to pass the time. Adding to my wife’s burden since now I need her to do basic things that I cannot see to do.

Obviously my eyesight has improved enough to muddle through a blog post. By inverting the colors and increasing the font size to “Godzilla” I can manage, albeit gingerly, to see the computer screen, something that I didn’t realize was such a necessity in my life before now.

This time the culprit isn’t GVHD, although it has made everything worse. This time I have a viral infection in my left eye. I started noticing symptoms right after I came home from the hospital. It was very painful and steadily worsened. I finally went to the ophthalmologist last week, expecting to hear that I had another corneal abrasion. Instead, the diagnosis was a virus. He proceeded to scrape off the outer layer of cells covering my eye to remove the virus, essentially creating a wound over my entire cornea. Believe it or not I hurt less after this procedure than before.


Believe It or Not


You can’t make this stuff up. Seriously, a viral infection in my eye! After everything I just went through in the hospital I get another virus, plus I was already on anti-viral medication. Such is the life of an immunosuppressed cancer fighter.

If this is a test of wills with the devil, he should give up now. He knows who does my fighting. But, if this is something that God is trying to teach me, I wish He would speak a little softer.

Lungs, eyes, appetite, gut, sinuses, legs. All have completed for “Jeff’s Worst Ailment” since October. The lungs probably win with the eye coming in a close second.

I did go to the eye doctor for a follow up today. The eye is healing well and some of my vision has returned. If I’m lucky, my eyes will be good enough to watch “24 Hours of a Christmas Story” tomorrow on TBS, a tradition I cannot break.


Answers to the Question


Sometimes there is no easy way out of things. This is one of those times. I lowered my head and trudged through two weeks in the hospital, only to find it was a false crest and I had another mile to go with limited vision, looking at the ground, one foot in front of the other.

But, why? Not “Why me?”, but why take my vision again? What can I do with all this time? I can’t blog, can’t read, can’t walk down the stairs without holding on for dear life? What is this proving?

A few months ago I wrote a post titled, “Why Suffering?” I started reading a book of the same name before the eye infection (I didn’t know about the book when I wrote my post). In describing how people deal with suffering, the authors comment that of course, everybody wants answers. But the reality is that sometimes there simply aren’t any.


Life doesn’t make sense. We understand cause and effect but it makes no sense when babies get terminally ill or innocent bystanders are caught in a crossfire. We think we understand when smokers develop lung cancer but not when healthy thirty-somethings get leukemia.

But really, would the answers make a difference. To some, I imagine it would help them cope. But, would it change anything?

Rather that needing answers, we need God’s presence. The best answers or arguments will do nothing to assuage the pain and suffering of the afflicted. God’s presence will do everything.

The God who made us gives meaning to our mess. He gives hope to the hopeless and love to the unlovable. His presence is more powerful than any medicine or any theological explanation. He is our Answer.

Vitale, Vince and Ravi Zacharias. Why Suffering? Finding Meaning and Comfort When Life Doesn’t Make Sense, FaithWords, New York, 2014.

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