You are sitting there in the dark, your hand trembling a little, your mind spinning worst-case pictures, and you feel very much alone. I want you to know this plainly: the Lord Jesus sees you. Not one terrified thought has flickered through you that He has missed. When our fears come crashing in like great breakers over a little ship, we easily imagine the Master is asleep below deck, indifferent to the spray and the pitching timbers. But He is not indifferent. He knows the swell of that sea because He made it, and He knows exactly what your poor heart can bear, because He fashioned it too. You are not drifting unobserved.
I think of the way a father will walk with his child through a pitch-black lane. The child does not need to see the road, or to know the hour of homecoming; he only needs to hold his father’s hand. Right now, your eyes are failing you, and that is its own deep valley of shadows. But your Father’s grip has not weakened. You may have to feel your way for a while. You may have to trust the arm of Another more than your own sight. And I will tell you something precious: some of the sweetest visits Christ ever pays to His people come when the other lights are put out. When the candle of bodily strength gutters low, then the soft glow of His presence becomes unmistakable.
I hear you saying, “But I am so full of fear, what if my faith is too small?” Do you recall that word about the bruised reed? A reed is a fragile thing at best, and when it is bruised, it seems fit for nothing but to be snapped and thrown aside. Yet the Lord does not snap it. He binds it up with a tenderness that would not startle a moth. And the smoking flax, the wick that gives off more smother than flame, a poor, choking, half-dead thing, He does not blow it out. Instead He cups His hand around that faltering spark and breathes upon it gently until it brightens. Your fear does not disqualify you; it only proves what you already know, that you need a mighty Saviour. A boat that feels the storm’s fury is a boat that learns the skill of its Captain.
There is a black-edged envelope that sometimes lands in our lap. On the outside we see trouble and sorrow, and we dread to open it. But inside, folded in those dark borders, is a love letter from our Father. He writes to us in affliction things He never writes in ease. He teaches us to number our days. He draws our gaze upward. He loosens our grip on the seen and the temporal, so that we may cling harder to the unseen and eternal. Even this fear about your health and your eyesight, heavy as it is, can be the very door through which you enter a room you have not known before, a room furnished with a peace that passes understanding.
Perhaps you wonder, “Can He really care about this shaking, about these eyes, about this body that feels like it is failing?” Go back to that breakfast on the shore at Galilee. Peter had denied his Lord with oaths, had fallen abysmally, and his own heart must have churned with shame. Yet Jesus did not cast him off. He kindled a fire, cooked fish, and then with a gentleness that probed but never wounded, He asked, “Do you love Me?” He restored him, not by thunder and judgment, but by a thrice-spoken question that mended Peter’s thrice-broken confession. The Lord who knows all things knew Peter’s love, and He knows your need. He knows the terror that wakes you at three in the morning. He knows the way your mind runs ahead to sorrows that have not yet come. And He meets you, not with a lecture, but with His own nearness.
Do not try to make yourself brave before you come to Him. Come with your weak hands and your quivering heart. Tell Him plainly, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I am afraid. You know that my sight is precious to me. You know that I do not want this cup. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” He can bear the full weight of your distress. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and His compassion is far deeper than our deepest trouble.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, you who opened the eyes of the blind and who still walk in the midst of your people, draw very near to this dear soul. Quiet the thrashing storm within. Let there be a great calm spoken into that racing heart. We do not ask for a courage that ignores the pain, but for a gift of faith that can rest in the darkness, holding fast to your hand. If you choose to restore sight, we will thank you with shouts of joy. If you choose instead to make your grace sufficient in the trial, then be the vision of the soul, clear, bright, and undimmed. Shelter your lamb in the hollow of your own piercèd hand, and grant, even tonight, the peace that comes not from circumstances but from your unfailing promise: “I am with you always.” Amen.