Healed In Thirty Seconds Or Less
By Phil Scovell
One would think a blind person, after more than 40 years of total
blindness, would not have anything they had not adjusted to,
especially after all the training and teaching by schools for the
blind and rehabilitation centers. In fact, such programs do their
best to program a person not to feel blind, not to act blind, and
certainly not to think blind. It is silly, of course, because you end
up doing something nearly every day which reminds you of your
blindness. You stub your toe, bump your head, trip over your
children's, or grandchildren's, tricycle, bicycle, skateboard,
motorcycle, or step on a sleeping cat or dog in the living room. You
can drop a screw and hunt for it for an hour, only to discover you are
sitting on it. You misplace your hat, put on one each of two
different shoes or boots or socks, or be rubbing your false eye in
church and it accidentally pops out. You can climb into the backseat
of your car, which you personally paid for, that your 16 year old son
is now driving and suddenly feel depressed without understanding why.
You can be attempting to cross the street with a cane or a guide dog
and feel the bus swish by just as you step into the street when the
light has turned green for you and red for it. You can get up early,
shower and shave, get dressed in your Sunday-go-to-meetin clothes and
sit for two hours, waiting for a promised ride for church which never
arrives.
Every blind person I know could write a book on such events which
can easily remind us that we are blind. Some agencies and
organizations attempt to try and make you forget that you are blind or
even to suggest your blindness is just a physical inconvenience for
which there are always methods that can be successfully employed to
circumvent the nuisance of being blind. The real truth is, you never
forget because you are always constantly reminded many times a day.
Our home based church Sunday meeting was over and everyone left to go
find some lunch. I walked into our bedroom and began to change
clothes. As I was hanging up my pants and shirt, an old familiar
memory flashed into my mind. This memory was related to my blindness
because it happened shortly after I had lost my sight at 11 years of
age. I thought nothing of this memory as I stood placing the hangers
on the rod because I had seen the memory hundreds and hundreds of
times throughout my life. It never bothered me because I had become
acclimated, or as my mother-in-law used to say, savvy, to such blind
annoyances. The methodology was simple. Just push the images away,
or in other words, just let it go and attempt not to focus on it. So
each time this memory flashed on to my mental screen, as it were, I
quickly dismissed it as unimportant. That's what I began to do this
time, too.
Turning, I closed the closet door and walked to the other side of
the bedroom where my other clothes lay and began putting them on. The
memory was still in my mind but fading fast because I attributed no
importance to it.
Suddenly I stopped. I intensified the memory until it was a
solid picture in my mind. I knew, since this memory was repetitive,
and not a particular happy memory by any stretch of the imagination,
there had to be something in this memory the Lord wanted to heal for
me.
Putting on my clothes, I left the bedroom and walked directly to
my office on the other side of our home.
Seated behind my desk, I focused on the memory once again. I
began to pray. I pray a little different than one might think in
these particular situations. I never say a word; I just exchange my
thoughts for God's.
Shortly after losing my sight, my mom and I went to see her
family. Nearly all of her 11 brothers and sisters and their families,
and her parents, lived in Kansas.
I always enjoyed seeing all of my cousins and this time, we spent
the night with Uncle Garald and Aunt Burnace or as we called her as
kids, Aunt B. The unusual thing about this family is that my aunt and
uncle had 5 girls and no boys. My younger sister, Ruth and I, plugged
right into the middle of the age groups represented by this family.
This visit was different, however, because I was now blind. Yet, all
went well, at first, until late that first night.
We all dragged out blankets and pillows to sleep all together in
the living room. This was a common practice when we all got together
because we all liked to talk and giggle, tell scary stories, and
generally drive our parents crazy.
It was growing late but we were far from tired. My mom and her
sister were seated at the kitchen table visiting softly as they
occasionally tossed a watchful eye over to the pillow fight that had
erupted.
I had my head under my blanket and was being beat to death by 6
pajama clad girls when suddenly, a corner of a pillow struck my
blanket directly where one of my eyes was. It hurt but not as much as
I cried. Everybody went dead still. They were probably thinking,
"Oh, no. We hurt Phil and he's blind now."
I was thinking, "I'm not really hurt but I am blind now, and that
really hurts."
Finally, Aunt B said she was sorry and soon all was forgotten and
we resumed our pillow fight.
None of my girl cousins, as I called them, ever knew it, but I
really loved them all very much. I had three sisters of my own so I
was used to being around girls but there seemed something special
about having so many girl cousins and I had a bunch. We all played
well together and we always had fun. I really did love them, as I
said, but this was back in the days when such things were never ever
mentioned.
As I sat at my desk, thinking about this harmless childhood
memory, I said, "Lord, there's nothing wrong with this memory."
"How did you feel?" I heard the Holy Spirit say quietly into my
thoughts."
"I felt blind," I replied quickly and honestly. You see, at the
moment that pillow hit me in the eye, I realized, not for the first
time, that I was now blind. Therefore, I was different.
The Holy Spirit gently said, "Yes, and how did you really feel?"
I thought for perhaps two seconds and then a smile creased my
face because I saw the lie the Lord wanted me to recognize for what it
was. I said confidently, "I'm not like my cousins any more." I knew
why, of course, and so did the Holy Spirit, because I was blind. The
fact of blindness, however, was not the lie. The lie was I was no
longer like my cousins.
Before I could allow my thoughts to barely touch on what Jesus
wanted me to know about this, I heard His voice, "No, you are not like
them any longer; you are like me."
This was not a major place of woundedness or so it would appear
on the surface. Every lie we believe is, however, exactly that;
major. Why? Because it hinders our spiritual intimate relationship
with the Lord. The moment Jesus said I was like Him now, I felt the
instant relief. The lie was gone and the memory no longer contained
any pain. I could now actually feel the love I had for my cousins
which I had never recognized before.
The title of this testimony is how long my prayer, my exchanged
thoughts for God's, lasted. You, too, can be healed from emotional
pain and woundedness that quickly.
End Of Document
Phil Scovell
Denver, Colorado
Mountain Time Zone
Phone: 303-507-5175
www.SafePlaceFellowship.com
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