His Blind Butterfly

Past Journal Entry

How do you talk to God when you’re mad? How do you talk to Him when you are a mess? And I don’t mean the mess in usual, everyday sense—because we are a mess all the time; I mean those times you’ve made the type of mess you are so good at making, because you are inherently a mess to begin with. Well let me tell you, I am an expert at making these messes. I have found that during these times we can be very quick to speak, even if it isn’t verbal. We speak loudly in our head, then with our actions, and of course with our words. So what is the best thing to do during these times? What are we to do? We ought to do what the Word says to do: be slow to speak and slow to become angry. Wait—I forgot there is one more thing we should be quick to do: listen. 

     So let’s look at the word “listen.” It might seem that I am a pro at listening—for after all, this is the misconception everyone has of us blind folks. I was at the hospital this week and my youngest pointed out this very thing. I had a nurse. When she was handing me my medications, she found out I was visually impaired—only because my kid made it a point to tell her. Suddenly the woman’s voice gets louder by like twenty decibels. What I will never understand is how they can treat people at their worst, but give them a patient out of the norm—someone hard of hearing, or add a little blind in the mix—and they just don’t know what to do. 

     So how do we listen when everything is so loud? You’d think that being blind, I’d be the pro! In reality, I am probably less of a pro than you. What I do know is that God gave us an incredible sense of hearing. I have heard that our hearing is the last to go and that this is why someone could be dying but can still hear, since we strain to hear in order to keep our minds engaged with the world around us. I have been asked often if given the choice, would I have preferred to be deaf rather than blind? I have pondered this question many times. The truth is (and now this changes sometimes), but I think I’d rather be blind. Now why do you think God says we should be quick to listen? I think that it is because it keeps us engaged in our relationship—it allows us to stay in communication with Him. We all hear Him in different ways. Thankfully, we can all hear Him if we try. I for one, alone in the midst of my frustration today, heard Him. Now I am no longer so stressed about the fact that my mom is in the hospital, my kid is driving home from school in LA, and I have to figure out when a nurse can come re-access my port. I know He is in control of the whole universe—not just my mess. Not only is He in control, but He cares. It hurts, yes, and I might have fumbled most of today, but He cares, so I can talk to Him.

     We often don’t want to talk to someone if they don’t care. Who would you want to ask for customer service from a mean person? I certainly don’t! The good thing to remember is that God is a loving and caring friend—He is not the cruel judge we often make Him to be. Trust me. If He could love crazy, messed up me, than my goodness, surely He can love you.