I KNOW a lady who is blind. This may not be unusual, but I watched this woman, from long distance and over many years, slowly, inexorably go blind. She is now more than sixty years of age, sightless, and not a Seventh-day Adventist. No, Adventists did not make her blind, but Adventists are the reason she is not a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church today.
Let's go back a few years, and let's call her Irene. Irene never did have good sight and as a girl she wore thick glasses. She studied hard, however, and became a graduate nurse. She married a fine man and had two children, a boy and a girl. They were an outdoor family and enjoyed roaming over many beautiful sections of Northwestern United States.
Irene's dimming vision, however, enabled her to see less and less of these beautiful scenes. Doctors gave her no help or encouragement. Finally, a doctor had the courage to say, "Irene, there is nothing more we can do. You are going to lose your sight completely."
A Cruel Blow
This blow was cruelly final. The thoughts of no more travels, no more fishing, never seeing the faces of her family or friends, sent her into canyons of depression. Bitterness followed despair. "If that's the way it's going to be, I might as well enjoy life while I can," she argued. There followed a period in her life when she did many things she would live to regret.
Irene prepared for blindness by learning Braille. She also did some serious thinking as the Holy Spirit prompted her to change her ways. She had attended Seventh-day Adventist schools, some of her relatives were Adventists, and at one time she believed that Jesus was coming soon. Now the renewed thoughts of His coming while she was living in sin frightened her.
In great agony of mind she telephoned the Seventh-day Adventist minister in her city, telling him she wished to give him some of her used Braille lessons.
An Unanswered Question
When the minister came she asked anxiously, "Can you tell me how to be a Christian? Is it too late for me?"
The minister was in a hurry. He said he was on his way to a social gathering at the church. "I don't know," he answered, "but take this book and read it. You will find out." The book was Daniel and the Revelation.
"I read it and was frightened half to death," Irene reported.
A few days later a Bible worker came to Irene's house. After greetings Irene said, "I don't know very much about the Bible."
"Oh, that's all right," the lady said. "I can quote more than three hundred Bible verses on many subjects." She proceeded to prove it by quoting many of them in rapid-fire order.
Later Irene said, "And she wasn't very nice about it."
Irene had been going to a local church and the parting words of the Bible worker were, "I'll be over to your church on Sun day."
She came, she listened, she took notes furiously. She walked out during the closing hymn and went to her car, but came back as the minister was greeting his parishioners.
In an excited voice she said to the minister, "Let me see your Bible." Then in a loud voice she began, "You are all wrong . . -." For the next five minutes she took that minister's sermon apart and scattered it to the winds. The embarrassed members listened in amazement. Later, one of them said, "I thought the woman was crazy."
"She never came back to the church or to see me. And the Adventist minister didn't either. I was glad," Irene said in reporting the incident.
Irene called the minister of another church. He came to her home, talked kindly about salvation through Jesus Christ, and they had prayer together. Irene gave her heart and her life to Jesus and became a zealous, truly converted Christian. She joined that church, as did her husband and two children.
I know the details of this story very well. Irene is my sister.
