August 24th, 2007 by admin

            About six weeks or so after the June checkup, I had the dreaded valve surgery, which I am sad to say, also did not work. My visits to the doctor�s office increased to 3 times a week, and he added an exercise called eye compressions. I had to push on the eye every two hours to manually push my eye fluid through the valve and out of the back of the eye. I also had to go on every eye drop possible along with pills. After all this, my pressure was still high and hovering around thirty. It was worse than it had ever been, and now I had hardware in the eye that could not be removed. Furthermore, the pills were known to cause kidney stones. I kept up the 3 per week office visits, kept pushing on the eye every two hours, took the eye drops, and popped down the pills. It was a disaster, and it went on for the next 3 months. 

            I had heard that walking in faith was easy, and all I had to do to be healed was receive it.  I Peter 2:24 said that I was already healed. I tried to see that with my spiritual eyes. I tried to understand what Jesus already had done for me. The result was that I just got more frustrated when preachers would say that it was �easy� to receive. Maybe I could not figure out �easy.� Maybe my easy button did not work. If it was so easy why was it going on three years and I was worse off then I had ever been?  I would confess and say that �I receive,� but total healing continued to elude me.

August 23rd, 2007 by admin

            To make matters worse, I had been having certain dreams all along which had tornadoes, snakes, and lions in them. Some nights I would have a tornado dream, other nights maybe the snakes. They happened at random times, and I had been having them for years. I began wondering what these meant — if anything. Maybe God was trying to tell me something or warn me of something. Tornadoes seemed to represent destruction, and they were quite awesome in the dreams. I thought that maybe the devil was associated with the snakes, and I had no clue what the lions were, but I was always afraid of them in my dreams. I had so many of these types of dreams that it was a little unnerving. I just made a mental note of them and shelved them. If nothing came to me, I would just dismiss them. It was not until later that I began to understand what these meant.

August 22nd, 2007 by admin

            After a successful church plant, we moved back to the Tulsa area. It was now March of 2005, and we set our sights in on other opportunities that we felt the Lord showing us. We had enjoyed our time in Arizona and had met some wonderful people whom we will cherish for a lifetime. Missy and I took jobs and settled in to accomplish a few things. The pressure in the eye seemed to be stable and had been that way since we saw the doctor in Arizona in August of 2004. My next checkup was not scheduled until June 1^st. I was still on the eye drops the doctor in Arizona had given me, and they seemed to be working in keeping the pressure stable.

            On June 1^st I went in for the check up and to my dismay the pressure had risen again. The drops were no longer working and a second surgery was inevitable. This was so disheartening. I was nervous and scared and trying to have faith. I would quote healing scriptures and my Jeremiah 17:7-8 key that I received while in Arizona. God told me if I trust in him my leaf would be green. Surgery did not sound like that. It sounded like my leaf was going to be cut. This was the valve surgery that I was told about on previous visits and I was not happy. Indeed this journey was an up and down journey, and I felt like I had no answers for anything. Everything that I had believed in and grew up believing was not working. Hopelessness is a horrible thing.

August 21st, 2007 by admin

            Once again, days turned into weeks and weeks into months and still the blindness in the lower part of the right eye remained. The pressure had remained stable, but the blindness was still not healed. This faith thing was difficult. The believer feels like he or she believes but still does not see any results; plus it did not ever take this long for Jesus to heal someone in the Bible. I was approaching 2 years with this issue. I just did not get it. What was Jesus waiting for? Why was it taking so long?

August 20th, 2007 by admin

            A couple of months progressed, and late in the summer of 2004 we sold our house. It was now time to move and help with the church plant. I was nervous because all of the doctors and people treating me were in Tulsa, and I was moving to Arizona. The pressure in the eye was still high, and if God did not do something, I was going to lose more sight. Upon arrival in Arizona, I found a new glaucoma specialist, who believed that I did not need another surgery. He added a few eye drops to the routine and was able to bring the pressure down into normal levels. I believed that finally, something positive was happening and that maybe God was around and helping me after all. My pastor friend, Brad Larson, encouraged me to believe God even if my eye was falling out of the socket. A little gruesome, but I knew what he meant. I could not give up. Christians must believe that God is the healer.

            Over the next few months going into the end of 2004 God directed me to a scripture: �Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope is the Lord, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river and will not fear when heat comes but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit� (Jeremiah 17:7-8). This was awesome. The Lord was telling me that if I trust in the Him, I will not fear when heat comes, but my leaf would be green. I understood what the scripture was saying. Heat is a form of destruction to the tree and the leaf is its physical component. I also was not going to be anxious or worry and I would continue to be fruitful. This was huge to me and the second spiritual milestone in this journey. Remember the first was that it is God�s will for me to be healed, and I learned that through Kenneth Hagin Sr. tape �Healing is the Children�s Bread.� So now I had two keys to believe. It is God�s will for me to be healed, and I needed to trust him to do it. Every key brought me closer to feeling like my healing was going to happen any moment.

August 19th, 2007 by admin

            Naturally, I was really hoping that this procedure would solve the issue. At this point, I was getting really tired of dealing with this eye thing. I had tons of questions for the Lord who somehow seemed to be quiet in this battle. I did not know what to do but keep believing that God was going to heal me. He had to. I could not go through this much longer. I felt that I was like one of the disciples in the boat, struggling to row in the midst of the storm.  Jesus was sleeping, not seeming to help. I did not know why he was not helping me.

            Unfortunately, only a month passed, and the hole that the needling procedure had opened up began to close again causing the pressure to increase in the eye. The needling procedure had not worked. I had to start up the drops again and make a new decision. The next surgery option was to physically place a valve in the eye that would open up when needed and release the fluid as it built up regulating eye pressure to normal. I was not ready to take that step, so I elected to remain on the eye drops even though the pressure was in the upper twenties.

August 18th, 2007 by admin

            I went back to see the glaucoma specialist who had done the surgery on the eye, and we tried to treat the eye with the eye drops. This was the only thing to do unless I wanted another surgery. I did not want to think about that. It was not fun the first time and I was sure it would not be the second. Over the next few months, the pressure in the eye was in the mid to upper twenty�s and damage was occurring slightly to my peripheral vision. I did not want another surgery, and we were still planning on moving to help plant a church. By June of that year on one of my doctor visits, that were now getting more frequent, my doctor mentioned to me that he could do a special procedure. This procedure could be done immediately sitting in the chair and would only take 30 seconds. This sounded good to me since he said that it would alleviate the pressure which in turn stops the glaucoma from causing more blindness. It was called a needling procedure. This procedure is designed to pop a hole in the area that had been clogged up when the blood vessel burst. Exactly as the procedure is named, a long needle is used to penetrate the eye. The doctor will then poke a few holes in the back of the eye, which then relieves the pressure. This is done by hand while the nurse assists. This will then allow the eye fluid to flow the way it is supposed to, and in return bring eye pressure back to normal. The procedure is performed while the patient is fully conscious. The eye is treated with some numbing drops but that is the extent of pain avoidance. The patient must look down and avoid blinking. Now how am I supposed to avoid blinking when a needle is going into my eye and is going to stay there for 30 seconds? A nurse held my eyelid open, I clinched the chair arms. I felt the needle go in and can honestly say that it was the longest 30 seconds of my life. After 30 seconds, the doctor slid the needle out, and I immediately was overcome with nausea and its impending results.

August 17th, 2007 by admin

            By the time I got to his office Missy and I had been praying a lot, and I was starting to regain some of the vision. I thought we were seeing a miracle. After Dr. Skaggs checked me out he said that a blood vessel had popped on the inside of the eye, and the blood had filled the lens thus blocking my vision. That was a huge relief because I thought the worst had happened — blindness. As I would stand upright the blood would rest in the bottom part of the lens and I could see again. If I bent over the blood would fill the lens and I would lose vision. It took a month for the blood to absorb fully back into my body and my sight to return to the way it was before the blood vessel burst. Dr. Skaggs took some glaucoma pressure checks in my eyes and found that the right eye pressure was creeping back up. He felt that the blood vessel bursting probably had something to do with that.

            Over the next few weeks the pressure in the eye would not descend, and I restarted the eye drop regimen. I was pretty discouraged, and I began to question the Lord. Was I doing something to deserve this? What was I supposed to be learning through this? Actually, however, �how do I get out of this� was the real question. It is human tendency to try and avoid the trials in our lives instead of doing what the Bible says: Count it all joy when you face trials (James 1:1). This was not joy; in fact, I could not find joy anywhere in the room. The Bible is difficult to follow sometimes. I guess that is why following God is a journey in faith.

August 16th, 2007 by admin

            The surgery went well, and I came through the recovery period in a timely matter. All seemed to be going smoothly. The pressure in the eye had stabilized, and I was able to stop using the eye drops. The only problem now was that I was still blind in the lower half of the eye. I settled back into normal life, but continued to believe that God would restore my sight completely; I just did not know when.

            A few months passed, and we were in the early part of 2004. Missy and I had our house for sale and had plans to relocate to help a pastor friend plant a church. One late evening I was reading, and my right eye went completely blind. I was in disbelief and frantic. I jumped up from the chair, called my wife and told her I could no longer see out of my eye. How could I have gone totally blind when everything seemed to be going so well after the surgery? I called the emergency number for my doctor, and it just rang and rang. After no answer from the emergency line, I called a doctor friend from church. He was an optometrist with a local practice and was the doctor I had originally gone to see. I woke him up out of bed and he graciously told me to meet him at his office in 30 minutes. (For those of you in the Tulsa area his name is Dr. Derrick Skaggs and I recommend him highly, and not just because he met me at almost midnight in his office.)

August 15th, 2007 by admin

            As I listened to the tape multiple times, I realized that even though I had been raised in a faith filled environment and had seen neat things pertaining to healing, I was battling doubt that God was going to heal me. Hopefully the eye drops would keep the pressure down, but maybe I would have to live with the blindness. Healing is the children�s bread. In this message, I thought I had found the answer. I had believed that God could heal. I knew He had the power to heal. I knew that He had healed other people, but the question was:  Would He heal me? I knew that God could but I did not know that he would. When I listened to the tape enough to get it in my spirit that He would heal me and that it was his will to heal me, I just knew it was going to happen any day. I could see where I had misunderstood, and I was thanking God that I now had the key. Days passed, then weeks, then months and as time passed neither the eye drops, nor the prayer, nor the key I thought I had found seemed to work, and the pressure in the eye began to creep up again and surgery was inevitable. I did not understand, but I did what I could.   

            I knew what high pressure in the eye could do and I did not want to lose more sight, so I opted for surgery in October of that year. The surgery was going to help open up the area that was blocking the flow of my fluid in the eye. I was assured by the doctor that the surgery was going to work, and I would not have to suffer with the pressure rising again until later in life. It was a laser surgery to open up the area in the eye to allow the fluid to move more freely, and it was also a common surgery for glaucoma patients. For those that want to know, the surgery was called a tribectelectomy. I was ready to get this behind me and felt as though God would guide the hand of the doctor and exercised my faith in this direction.