At First Sight

     A few years ago I saw a movie called "At First Sight" during my crazy-about-Val-Kilmar phase.  It was a pretty good movie, interesting, about a blind man who, at the urging of his girlfriend, went through an operation to get his sight back.  The surgery was a success (spoiler alert-hopefully I'm not ruining the movie for anyone) and most of the rest of the movie was about the struggles he went through after he got his sight back.  He had to "learn" to see again.  He was so used to "seeing" things with his hands that he couldn't tell just by looking at something what it was, he had to feel things to identify objects.  In the end it was a temporary fix and he contracted a retinal disease and went blind again, which seemed fine with him because he was struggling so much with sight.  It's funny the things that stay with you.
     A little while later I was studying the story of Jesus healing a blind man, the one where He mixed His spit with mud and put it on the blind man's eyes, told him to wash in the pool of Siloam and his sight was completely restored.  I began mulling that story over and meditating on it and one of the first things that came to mind was that movie, "At First Sight".  When humans are healed through the miracle of science and brilliant doctors that process is often long and arduous.  A paralyzed person has to learn to walk again, a long and frustrating journey; a blind person has to learn to see and retrain his or her brain to recognize things and adjust focus on objects near or far away; a deaf person has to make sense of what they're hearing, adjust to loud and soft sounds, and make sense of people talking (especially fast talkers like me, lol); and on and on.  However when you study the miracles of Jesus and the people He healed they had none of those problems.  When He healed the lame, blind, sick, etc... even those who suffered their particular ailment from birth, He healed them completely.  He healed their minds to cope with the change in body situation, to understand what was going on and adjust to it.
     That's not to say I don't like doctors or scientists.  I highly respect and admire them, the work they do and the knowledge they have striven to attain.  I want to be one!  And lot of people need that struggle.  God teaches us a lot through struggle.  As we've learned from butterflies coming out of their cocoon or (most, if not all) oviparous animals hatching out of their eggs, it's the struggle that gives us strength.  God could have helped and led the Israelites in defeating Jericho the first time they encountered it but because they didn't trust Him they had to wander in the desert for 40 years.  And during that time of wandering and struggle they became a hardier people that developed a stronger trust in the Lord, in large part due to the fact that they HAD to depend on Him for... well just about everything.
     That being said I was awed when thinking about how thoroughly Jesus healed people and everything that was involved in that healing.  I've read about the miracles of Jesus so often that it became commonplace and maybe even a bit boring.  The very act of healing someone from an ailment is amazing, but when I began to realize the extent of that healing the wonder and mystery of those miracles came alive again.
     Our bodies are a wonderful, self-repairing organism but it takes a bit of time to do the job.  Still when Jesus is involved in the process (if he doesn't think we need the struggle or to stay that way) the healing is instantaneous and complete.
     It's amazing the things the Lord will use to teach you a lesson.