News

This is my commandment,

that you love one another as I have loved you.

John 15:12

Royal Ones,

I come today to share how light broke broke into my dark journey and opened the eyes of my understanding to see anew the depths of His love. When the doctor diagnosed me with melanoma on my eye, a cancer that only five in one million get, I blurted to his assistant, “God and I will fight this. I have no symptoms and I see pretty good, almost 20/20 in both eyes.” An uncomfortable silence fell. “I just have a little astigmatism. What if I don’t do anything? I sat back with crossed arms over my chest.

“Well, you will probably lose your eye or worse.” The doctor’s brow furrowed. “I want to send you to a specialist in Oklahoma. This type of eye problem is so rare, there are no doctors in Kansas to treat it.”

Stunned, I stared at my husband. Tears welled up and threatened to overflow. He looked overwhelmed, too, and glanced away. As we left the office, a fog covered my thoughts. This is not real. How can this be happening? Afraid I’d break down in the lobby, I left my husband to take care of the paperwork and escaped to the car. Sobs erupted like a volcano overflowing down the mountain of disbelief in my thoughts.

Within a week, I had an appointment with the specialist in Oklahoma City. Like so many who face this kind of diagnosis, I felt alone. God brought many beautiful people to my aid. Their prayers and kindnesses lifted me out of that lonely place. (I wrote about my incredible revelation of oneness in the body of Christ in the post called, Dwell in His Love – Part One.)

I began to believe that when they tested my eye in Oklahoma City, they would not find the cancer. It would be gone. I believed that He had already made something beautiful out of it. The day before my appointment, I sang for joy and worshipped with my husband in the car as we drove to Oklahoma City. That night, in the hotel room, whenever my husband brought up the appointment, I responded, “Don’t talk to me about that. I just want to worship.”

With my eyes closed, I listened to soft worship songs. As I breathed deep and relaxed, I found my thoughts immersed in Jesus, the one who loved me above all and gave His life that I’d be whole.

The next morning Steve asked me if I wanted to shower first. I said, “No. I want to worship.” Again I closed in with my Beloved. I knew He had already made something beautiful of this intrusion in my life and I wanted to thank Him.

Even though I did not hear Him speak, like He so often did in these moments, a wonderful peace permeated my being. Little did I know that in the next moments, while showering, I’d hear words that would shake my theology and set me on a wonderful path of discovery.

Relaxing beneath the water’s warmth on my body, Heaven invaded my thoughts and shifted my thinking. Be nice to these people. I’m going to use their hands to heal you. I’m not sure why God thought He needed to tell me to be nice, except I was aggravated about even being there. I only came to honor my husband, who insisted that God had allowed the doctor to find this unwelcome intruder for a good reason.

I believed Christ’s resurrection had absorbed all my sickness and disease, so I reminded God, as if He might not remember, or know, “You don’t need the doctor’s hands to heal me.” Shower water splashed in my face. He patiently ignored my argument and continued his download into my know-it-all thinking, Don’t stop believing in healing. I am going to use your hands to heal. That thought lined up with what I had longed for and believed for years.

What happened next is difficult to explain. His words passed so fast into my mind with an immediate knowing and understanding unlike anything I had ever experienced in my walk with Him. It started with, Like my Son. With those three words, I knew Father was referring to Jesus and how before the foundation of the world he agreed to be sacrificed on the cross to bring His sons back to Him. You chose, before you were born, before the foundation of the world, when you were in me, to be sent to those you will meet and touch them with my love. This is the only pathway for you to reach them.

With this knowing, my heart filled with an indescribable peace and joy. My mysterious love journey had begun. Hours later, I sat in the doctor’s chair, my heart thumping a little faster than usual, and contemplated whether to tell the doctor what God had told me. He leaned in to examine my eyes.

“Wait!” I put up my hand. “I have to tell you something. God told me in the shower this morning that he is going to use your hands to heal me.” A little giggle erupted from my lips as I stared at his speechless face.

“No pressure or anything.” I added.

“Yeah, no pressure or anything.” His nurse smiled.

Scripture says, …Eye has not seen , nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him (I Corinthians 2:9). At that moment, I was not able to see the beautiful journey that lay ahead. And after several tests that day, the doctor came back into his office, where I waited in wonder of what God was doing.

“I can save your eye and your eye sight.”  He went on to explain the procedure: a gold ring called a plaque with radiation seeds would be surgically placed in my eye, then I’d wait in the cancer center for four days before having it surgically removed. A biopsy would be taken to determine the type of melanoma and the chance of metastasis.

The day of the surgery I asked the doctor if we could pray. He graciously agreed. I took his hand and thanked God that I had the opportunity to meet this man. I also thanked Him for a supernatural surgery. When I finished, he stood over me and stared for the longest moment with tenderness in his eyes.

In the coming months I grew to love this doctor like my own son. I carried him, his family, his staff and his patients in my prayers almost daily---still do.

“God sees greatness in you that you don’t see in yourself.” I shared with him at one appointment. “He’s pulling it out of you.” This gentle, loving young man came over and put his arm round my shoulders and hugged me into his chest.

During another appointment I asked if he knew Jesus.

“Yes, I do.” He answered.

“I knew it!” I responded.

As wonderful as it would have been to be miraculously and instantly healed, I would not trade that instant healing for this love journey that opened my eyes to see the Father’s love in the eyes and touch of a young man who shined with the light of Jesus’s gentleness and compassion.

I was also able to experience and better understand how others feel at times like this and have a greater compassion for them. While at the cancer center I walked the halls, worshipped and prayed for those staying there. During those days I experienced no pain in my eye that was sewn shut and covered with a metal covering to protect others from the radiation being released into my retina.

I clung to Jesus words, “Blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear (Matthew 13:16). Weeks later the biopsy showed my type of cancer had only a 2% chance of metastasis. After weeks and months of eye drops, injections and many discoruaging days of waiting, my eyes are now clear enough to type and write to you without glasses.

Jesus says in John 15:12-13, This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

My royal friends, let us love one another as Christ has loved us. Dwelling in His love means that nothing in this world system can touch us. We are spirit with a body, not a body with a spirit. We are whole and beautiful, a new creation.

When Jesus came back to the disciples in the upper room, he showed them the scares in his physical body and yet, he appeared and disappeared and walked through walls. My eyes may have a small scar and a little imperfection in eyesight, but my spirit man is whole and complete.

Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll walk through walls, like Jesus, and appear in your living room when you need a loving touch. Nothing is impossible with Him. If I learned anything on this love journey is that His ways are not my ways and absolutely nothing is impossible when I dwell in His love.

Linda Fergerson – His Little Butterfly

[email protected]