Sight

   "Jesus asked him, "What do you want me to do for you?" 

    "Lord," he said, "I want to see!"

     And Jesus said, "All right, receive your sight! Your faith has healed you." Instantly, the man could see, and he followed Jesus, praising God. And all who saw it praised God, too.

Luke 18:40-43

  If someone is blind and their vision is restored through surgery or even an eye transplant, it takes the brain time to make sense of the new input. Someone who has never seen a chair or a table or a book but only had touch to give these things shape and form would need some time for their brain to connect the sensory information with the visual. 

  I take seeing colour for granted. This would be a whole new world to learn about and explore if you once were blind.

  It's no wonder the man praised God because all of this was healed and brought into alignment instantly. His brain was healed as the unused neural pathways connected to vision were brought to life! This miracle is so much bigger than just not being able to see then being able to see perfectly!

  Lord? Where are You taking me this morning?

  I have sight. 

  But I can also be blind, can't I?

  My eyes don't always show me the truth.

  Those neural pathways devoted to sight can be influenced by what we imagine we are seeing. Point in case, the post a while back about looking like a "hard chore." Since then I've been able to reframe how I look at the picture.

  Instead of a hard chore, I see a woman who has lived a life full of sorrow and pain. I see a woman who didn't like getting her picture taken.

  I was blind, but now I see.

  My friend and I take a progress photo every Sunday to give us visual proof for how well the Gina Livy program is working. The weight loss might not be large, but the body continues to change as it gets the nutrition and water it needs. Gina, in her colourful language, constantly says losing twenty pounds through her program will look like forty on any other starvation/deprivation diet. I believe it. 

  I heard somewhere that losing ten pounds would mean losing an inch around the waist. My waist has slimmed down by a whopping four and a half! I've lost twenty-three pounds and the scale continues to drop. 

  Since writing about the "hard chore," I've become kinder. Subsequent pictures see a happier me who can take a picture and celebrate the victories caught by the camera. It's not just my waist that's slimmer, it's everywhere!

  Sorrow brings its own kind of blindness. So do fear and shame.

  For the last seventy-one days, I have been immersed in a virtual community whose only intention is to see all of succeed in a weight loss journey towards our finally and forever goal. This community of "losers" want to help us succeed in overcoming the blind spots, the lies, the doubts about who we are. It's so much more than simply losing weight. Losing the emotional baggage some of us have carried our entire lives is even more important!

  Not only is my body healing from years of neglect and poor nutrition, my mind is healing from years of neglect and poor nutrition, too. This daily feast of encouragement is affirming and reinforcing all that God has taught me over the years on the Black River. It's helping me to embrace His truth!

  I am finally starting to see that I am Cricket. She is me and I am her. (Smile. All the good things I see in her are in me!) The years of keeping her locked away, of blaming her, of hating her...heck...let's call it what it is...hating myself are over. All the pieces of me are becoming one person. 

  When we lock away our hurts, we lock away a piece of ourselves. I know that now but the only way I knew to survive was to lock down the pain in case it swallowed me alive. Shutting down Cricket was collateral damage. This way of coping is unsustainable. The locker room exploded. Thank God!

  My eyes aren't perfect yet. It's hard to shut the toxic voices down that are intent on messing with my vision; the ones who cry out against this tremendous personal growth. But, and it's a big BUT...I was blind BUT now I SEE! 

  Amen and praise God for all He has done because this is freaking amazing!