When someone lives through a life-changing event or trauma, like I did when I lost my sight, people often wonder how they are able to keep moving and carry on with life. I often get asked how I deal with all of the challenges and hardships that my blindness can cause and how I was able to face this sudden change in my life with strength and determination. 

The answer…. Prayer. 

At that point in my life, it’s not that I was the strongest Christian. I grew up in church and went through the motions, but I did not have a real personal relationship with Christ, and my prayer life was practically nonexistent. I had been used to dealing with my problems on my own and by worldly means. 

Until, that is, I was faced with a problem that was too big for me to sweep under the rug without help from God. My sudden and devastating loss of sight. I had no idea where to turn, but God ultimately blessed me through this sorrow as He taught me how to find peace and strength through prayer. 

Here is what I learned from my journey about the power and importance of talking to God.

Start Talking and Don’t Stop

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”-Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT)

At the beginning of my journey with sight loss, I only prayed for healing. I remember going to bed each night and saying, “God, when I wake up, just let me be able to see.”

That was the extent of my prayers in those early days. Of course, I became more and more disappointed each morning when I would wake up and my prayer had not been answered. At this point, it would have been very easy for me to turn away and just completely stop talking to Him, and, honestly, I do not know what kept me from doing that, but I kept on praying, even though I did not always know quite what to say. 

Over the next few months, my prayers began to shift. They became longer, filled with more substance, and resembled more of a conversation. Slowly, I was learning how to truly open up to God.

Be Vulnerable

“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” -Romans 15:13 (NLT)

Vulnerability is something that I have never been very good at showing. I never like to admit my weaknesses to others, and this only got worse as I was dealing with my new sight loss. 

I was so fearful about living my life without sight, and I held all of this anxiety inside of me. I tried to deal with it on my own, but found myself lashing out at others and not able to reconcile with the emotions that I was facing. 

When I would admit these vulnerabilities to others, it would make us all upset, and I absolutely hated causing those emotions in the ones I love. As I became more comfortable talking to God, however, I began to open up to him about how I was truly feeling. To my amazement and relief, no one burst into tears, which was usually what happened when I spoke honestly about my struggles to others. Rather, I honestly and quite literally felt a weight being lifted off my shoulders. 

As I confessed to God how I felt useless, weak, and lost without my sight, I began to be filled with peace and a sense of confident hope. This came from knowing that my God, my confidant and comforter, is always just a prayer away.

Don’t Have a One-Way Conversation

“Ask me and I will tell you remarkable secrets you do not know about things to come.” -Jeremiah 33:3 (NLT)

The next thing that I learned during my prayer journey was to listen. 

I had so many questions for God, and it seemed like none of them were being answered. I wanted to know how to move forward, what my purpose would be in this situation, and if my life would ever look “normal” again. 

It took me a while to figure it out, but I finally realized that I wasn’t getting answers because I wasn’t giving God the chance to speak. I was treating prayer like a one-way conversation as I dialed God’s number, gave my requests and grievances to him, and then hung up the phone. Instead, I should have been leaving the line of communication open. 

As I learned this lesson, I realized that quiet time with God doesn’t just mean that you sit in a hushed room to read Scripture and pray.

These things are important, but it is also vital to be still and quiet your thoughts so that you can hear God speaking back to you. I also learned that God speaks to us in many different ways, one of which is through others. This is why it is so important to surround ourselves with a community that will build us up in Christ.

Focus on His Will

“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” -Luke 22:42 (NLT)

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, through my prayer journey, I learned to take into account the will of God. You see, He doesn’t always give us exactly what we want, but He will always provide us with whatever we need so that His will can be done. 

I have not been healed physically, as I desire, and I have had to reconcile with the fact that this is just not God’s will for my life at the moment. In those early days, when I prayed for healing and nothing else, I simply wanted my blindness to disappear so that the hardships, anger, and grief that accompanied this loss would go away as well. 

Through paying attention to God’s will, however, I realized that He wanted a different type of healing to occur in me. A spiritual healing of my heart, faith, and relationship with Him so that, through this, I would learn to rely on Him in the midst of all of those hardships and moments of anger and grief. I still send requests to God for healing and for the hardships that I face on this earth to be taken away, but like Jesus did in Luke 22, I strive to remember to also ask that His will be done. 

I know that, as I continue to talk to and be vulnerable with God, be still and listen to Him, and focus on His plan for my life, He will always provide me with a sense of peace and the strength to face whatever is in my path.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sara Claudia is a public speaker and writer from Carrollton, GA. After losing her sight in 2015, she embarked on a journey that both tested and strengthened her faith. She found a passion for sharing her testimony and experiences through her writing and speaking. In her spare time, Sara Claudia enjoys exploring God's beautiful creation through travel and being outdoors.