when you can’t see what God is doing

I just knew it was coming.

There was no doubt in my mind.

A couple weeks before, i realized that God was giving me new spiritual vision. Since i was a child, i had been blinded by legalism. i had a distorted view of God as rigid, vengeful and unrelenting.

i didn’t see Him like that anymore.

Those lies had been exposed as God began to open my eyes to His overwhelming love for me. i was truly — for the first time — beginning to see Him for who He truly is. Loving. Compassionate. Intensely personal. 

Quite unexpectedly, God also assured me that He was going to heal my physical vision — both my reading vision and my extreme nearsightedness. Every time i opened my eyes, it would also be a reminder of the new spiritual vision i now had.

i know i sound crazy. But God’s ways often seem crazy to us.

But the morning after i wrote that promise in my journal, i no longer needed my reading glasses. Haven’t used them since.

On June 12, 2017, for a number of reasons, i went to bed convinced that my nearsightedness was next. In all my vast humility, i believed i knew exactly what God was doing and exactly how and when He was going to do it.

i believed without a doubt that i would wake up the next morning with no further need for glasses and contacts.

So much so, in fact, that i actually broke and threw away my eyeglasses and my final set of contacts. 

Then i woke up early the next morning.

And nothing had changed. My vision remained as fuzzy as ever.

The night before i had been so confident and energized. But now, disappointment and fear washed over me.

It wasn’t because i didn’t have my “new” sight. It was because i began to question all kinds of things that i had been SO sure about it.

Anxious thoughts filled my brain …

What else was i wrong about? Had i really been hearing from God all these weeks?

Was the physical healing i had been experiencing supernatural or just a brief remission?

What was God doing?!  

a vision board

For most of my life, my journey had often seemed so random. i could rarely see or understand what God was doing as i walked through sometimes excruciatingly difficult circumstances.

My emotional and physical suffering did not seem to be for any grand purpose. I felt punished by God. That He could never be pleased with me. Like I was forgotten. Like I wasn’t His “favorite.”

In 2017, all that began to change. A little at a time, God began to show me how all of the painful, heartbreaking, wonderful, random and seemingly “insignificant” seasons and occurrences in my life weren’t random at all.

They had been carefully and intricately weaved together with surgical precision. I would sometimes gasp when God would give me a new realization of what He had been doing and planning and preparing me for.

I would shake my head in shame and disbelief, thinking back at how angry I was at Him at the time. How I was convinced that He didn’t care or that He didn’t “see” me.

Or how I simply didn’t notice how gently and beautifully His hand was guiding me.

As I began to realize all these connections, I began to put together a vision board.

But it wasn’t your “typical” vision board.

I wasn’t compiling symbols of things that i wanted to work toward.

Instead, I put together symbols of those events, seasons and milestones that God had been working toward for my good and His glory.

I just couldn’t see it at the time.

I didn’t have to plan my own vision for my future. He already had:  

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. Psalm 139:16

I hung the board up in my office where i can see it everyday, a constant reminder for those times that still come when I can’t see what God is doing. I can glance over and remind myself, “I couldn’t see what God was doing then either, but look at the beauty He was weaving.”

It reminds me of Ecclesiastes 11:5: “Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.”

my present view

So, back to the morning of June 13, 2017. My nearsighted self stumbled out to the living room.

i prayed for a bit and then simply laid my head on a pillow and said, “Jesus, i just need to rest with you.”

i slept for an hour, but woke up in the same turmoil.

i felt anxious and paralyzed. i wasn’t mad at God or even disappointed by HIM. i was confused.

What was my voice? What was God’s? 

i knew i could follow His voice. But if i was following mine, i was in big trouble. How could i know the difference?

By that evening, i was emotionally exhausted.

Suddenly, i felt the impulse to grab one of the journals i’d been keeping over these last few months. i flipped it open to a long entry i’d made in a furious burst of spiritual insight and gratitude at 3 a.m. one morning recently.

i began to read the truths and promises i had written in my journal to my husband. As i read the words out loud, i gained more and more confidence that the God of the universe had been meeting me personally and powerfully in profound ways.

i was not crazy.

My husband said to me, “It sure sounds real to me. Anything that you’ve gotten wrong, God will will show you.”

Clearly i had misinterpreted the timing of the healing of my vision, but i knew that i hadn’t made these things up in my head.

The doubt and confusion was slowly lifting.

i didn’t have to get it all right. i didn’t have to understand all God was doing.

i just had to keep seeking Him and trusting Him to guide my journey. Even when it didn’t look like i thought it would.

Before i went to bed that night, i wrote these words in my journal: “You don’t have to understand what I’m doing, Melinda. You just need to understand ME and who I am.”

i could rest secure. My Father’s vision is always crystal clear.