No!

No? Is God mean? To say that He would say “no” sounds so harsh and lacks all the warm fuzziness we’ve often associated with divine Jesus love. To say that God would actually tell me that He won’t fix my eye, and to allow for the inference that there are some things God doesn’t fix no matter how hard we’ve prayed, seems so wrong. And trust me when I say that I’ve prayed about this as have so many others. I have no idea just how many God-fearing prayer warriors have interceded on my behalf. And we believed that God can and that He would. Be He hasn’t so I’ve decided to act as if He won’t.

And as I thought about my professor’s question throughout the rest of that class period, I realized that my one request to God reveals my deepest pain and I supposed that it was time I got some new pain, the kind that God has when He thinks about trying to save us. I don’t want to downplay personal experience like a former boss of mine would do almost daily. He’d step into my office and take a few moments to share some concerns he had regarding the incredible work our department had before us directly and indirectly related to teaching all the university’s Freshmen how to write well. Then after a passion-filled unloading, he’d walk away saying, “But how can I complain when there are people starving around the world?" I wanted to smack him but instead I simply reminded him that his frustrations were both real and valid…as are mine…right?