Faith not Fear

“Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing your head with oil in the Name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.” ~James 5: 14-15 Cataracts developed over both of my eyes while I was still in my 20's. They had become so thick I was not able to read a road sign or even tell which color a traffic light was. I had always been afraid of being blind or having eye surgery. At that time the cataract surgery evolved removing it and sewing a hard implant into the eye, leaving one severely near sighted. I prayed and prayed for healing. One Sunday evening, my pastor said, “This is your time.” He anointed my head with oil and the elders gathered around me praying for healing. My faith was so strong I was expecting them to fall off at any moment. When I returned to my eye surgeon 3 months later, I was still expecting them to fall off before his very eyes. But this didn't happen. Instead he set the date to have the worst one on my right eye removed first. I couldn't understand then why the Lord didn't heal me? We did everything according to scripture , my faith was strong, yet the cataracts remained? The cataract surgery did not go as planned. They had to put me out since it took 3 and ½ hours to do what should have been done in 45 minutes. The surgeon told my wife it was like trying to peel skin off jello. I was off work for over 6 weeks and wore a steel plate over my eye. My wife had to put drops in 4 times a day. She said she almost passed out doing so because my eye was a bloody swollen mess. Twenty years later, my surgeon told me he was retiring. He remembered back to that horrible day and said, “I am a catholic and had great pride in myself as being a top notch eye surgeon. But that day, when I was nearing the third hour of your surgery, I was exhausted, my hands were shaking, and I started praying the Lord would help me save your eye.” The Lord had answered my prayer differently because of two reasons. He wanted to remind my surgeon he always needed the Lord's help no matter how confident he was in his work. But most of all, the Lord decided to lead me through this because I was praying out of fear of eye surgery more than faith. The Lord led me through 4 major back surgeries, and the left cataract surgery Through faith, not fear. If you read the scripture above a second time, you will see “such a prayer offered in faith” will heal the sick, not fear. The words “Fear Not” are recorded between 60-80 times in the Bible ~according to the translation~' I will not “fear” what the Lord can do through “Faith” because fear has no part in the Power of what the Lord can do! The worship song, “Open the Eyes of my Heart Lord” has a distinctive meaning to me! We serve an Awesome God and the Great Physician!