Baptist News Global
Sections
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Curated
  • Storytelling
    • Faith & Justice >
      • Charleston: Metanoia with Bill Stanfield
      • Charlotte: QC Family Tree with Greg and Helms Jarrell
      • Little Rock: Judge Wendell Griffen
      • North Carolina: Conetoe
    • Welcoming the Stranger >
      • Lost Boys of Sudan: St. John’s Baptist Charlotte
      • Awakening to Immigrant Justice: Myers Park Baptist Church
      • Hospitality on the corner: Gaston Christian Center
    • Signature Ministries >
      • Jake Hall: Gospel Gothic, Music and Radio
    • Singing Our Faith >
      • Hymns for a Lifetime: Ken Wilson and Knollwood Baptist Church
      • Norfolk Street Choir
    • Resilient Rural America >
      • Alabama: Perry County
      • Texas: Hidalgo County
      • Arkansas Delta
      • Southeast Kentucky
  • More
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donate
    • Associated Baptist Press Foundation
    • Planned Giving
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Advertising
    • Ministry Jobs and More
    • Transitions
    • Subscribe
    • Submissions and Permissions
Donate Subscribe
Search Search this site

Trusting in God’s miracle of restored eyesight – and in the miracle of modern science

OpinionRuss Dean  |  November 2, 2018

A few years ago, as I stepped to a sales register, the message on my t-shirt garnered a big, sweet smile from the young clerk. She was mouthing the words half-out-loud, reading the pink writing on white cotton which celebrated the birth of twin girls who hadn’t weighed three pounds between them when they arrived, far too soon.

Sixteen weeks premature – “micro preemies,” they are called – my newborn nieces were barely viable, but after 104 days in the NICU, where they had been nursed by an assortment of million-dollar machines and PICC lines dripping multisyllabic medical cocktails, not just mother’s milk, they both had gone home with their parents, healthy and happy.

So, I gladly joined the sales clerk’s celebration, saying: “Yes, they are miracles of modern science!” Just that quickly, her smile disappeared. She seemed to be processing my words with an equal mix of confusion and offense, which changed the smile into a subtle sneer. As she repeated the words under her breath, her inflection rose to a final, judgmental pitch: “Miracles of modern… (she paused) science?”

She turned up her lip and rolled her eyes away from me. When she handed me my change and the merchandise, there was no friendly, “Thanks for shopping!” She seemed glad to see me go, and I could tell as I walked away that she was saddened by this confrontation with one of those – no, not one of those Baptist ministers, but a godless secularist.

I knew what she was thinking: If they were “miracles” at all, they were miracles of God.

“For too many, there’s no need for conversation; it’s either God or science, miracles or medicine.”

I would love to have stayed for a theological conversation, but I didn’t have time, and I’ve seen that look before. Somehow I don’t think my theology would have been very welcomed. For too many, there’s no need for conversation; it’s either God or science, miracles or medicine.

We’ve got to rethink that.

Last week a cloud appeared in my left eye, occluding about a quarter of my field of vision. I wiped my eye repeatedly but couldn’t clear the cloud, so the next day I made an appointment.

A few days later at the outpatient surgery center a talkative nurse anesthetist named Matt wheeled me into a cold, ophthalmological operating room and administered narcotics. “I’ve never been high,” I said as some frigid spirit raced from my left wrist through the rest of my body, “but this is great!” With that, a white coat appeared over me, and a dark-skinned immigrant with “M.D.” behind his name placed two fingers below my left eye, wiggled them around, and said, “You’ll feel a little stick and some pressure.”

I asked if he’d inserted that hypodermic into my optic nerve, and he gave me a medically-circumspect, “Not exactly. . .” Then he said, “Now, no more questions. I need you to be still!” So I shifted from curious student to fascinated observer – but lay there fully conscious for the next 60 exciting minutes, enthralled by every feeling and listening to every word spoken above me: “Laser… Let’s use some cryo… We’re done.”

They had obviously injected some kind of really cool drugs into my IV, because I was “cool-as-a-cuke” for that hour, lying there taking mental notes as the doctor with the thick accent cut three incisions in my left eye and inserted some nifty little tools.

With those tools in my eyeball, they sucked out all the eye-juice (though, I don’t think that’s what they call it in medical school). The doctor then used a microscopic laser to “spot weld” the retina of my left eye to repair a detachment with a slight tear. Finally, he re-inflated my eyeball with an inert gas called “SF4.” It’s lighter than oxygen so it rises against the retina, forcing it against the back of the eye, and remains in the eye long enough for the retina to adhere organically. Then it just dissipates, clearing your eye to its original vision.

“Today, my doctor does three or four such miracles, with predictable, reliable success, every day.”

A miracle of modern science.

God has always brought life where there is no life and given sight to the blind. That’s what God is – life – and the ability literally and figuratively to “see the light.”

For most of human history that little cloud in my eye would have grown, mysteriously, until there was no vision at all. No one would have known what was happening or why. I suppose there have been some one-in-a-zillion anomalies (after some unexplained loss of vision, a “Look… I can see!”), but until just recently, no one has been able to fix such blindness.

Today, my doctor does three or four such miracles, with predictable, reliable success, every day.

As recently as about 20 years ago, had my nieces been born so premature, there would have been no hope; we would have just had a tearful funeral and accompanied two tiny caskets to the cemetery. It’s not that God cared any less about eyes or “micro preemies” in prior generations, but medical science has only recently learned to harness these aspects of God’s creativity and healing power.

I took God with me into the operating room yesterday, and I coveted all the prayers that accompanied me. I strode into my doctor’s office with a faith-filled calm, trusting that come what may, God would be with me. But, as a product of this generation, I also bore the confidence that in a few days I will see, quite literally, yet another miracle – the miracle of modern science.

Thanks be to God.


OPINION: Views expressed in Baptist News Global columns and commentaries are solely those of the authors.
Tags:ScienceRuss Deanmiracles
More by
Russ Dean
  • Get BNG headlines in your inbox

  • Featured

    • At long last, Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy appears to be dead

      News

    • In applauding Victor Orban, U.S. conservatives call their shot

      Opinion

    • Christian nationalism is a danger to our nation

      Opinion

    • How The Jetsons and Westworld help us think about robots, personhood and faith

      Analysis


    Curated

    • Ben & Jerry’s fears its new Israeli owner could sell ‘Judea and Samaria’ ice cream in latest court hearing

      Ben & Jerry’s fears its new Israeli owner could sell ‘Judea and Samaria’ ice cream in latest court hearing

      August 10, 2022
    • Why Alexander Hamilton gave his heart to Jesus at a Texas church this weekend

      Why Alexander Hamilton gave his heart to Jesus at a Texas church this weekend

      August 10, 2022
    • Baby Blues: How to Face the Church’s Growing Fertility Crisis

      Baby Blues: How to Face the Church’s Growing Fertility Crisis

      August 10, 2022
    • Orthodox Alaska Part 2: The Beatles, Bees And Orthodoxy Animated In One Man’s Life

      Orthodox Alaska Part 2: The Beatles, Bees And Orthodoxy Animated In One Man’s Life

      August 9, 2022
    Read Next:

    40 Congressmen urge IRS to reconsider classification of Family Research Council as a ‘church’

    NewsMark Wingfield

    More Articles

    • All
    • News
    • Opinion
    • Curated
    • SBC president says he tried to enlist more women for sexual abuse task force but got turned down repeatedly

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • At long last, Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy appears to be dead

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • In applauding Victor Orban, U.S. conservatives call their shot

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • Christian nationalism is a danger to our nation

      OpinionMarvin McMickle

    • How The Jetsons and Westworld help us think about robots, personhood and faith

      AnalysisRick Pidcock

    • Some evangelical leaders see FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago as evidence of the religious persecution coming to them

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Advice from a sunflower

      OpinionPhawnda Moore

    • Where are the women on the SBC’s first and second sexual abuse task forces?

      AnalysisMark Wingfield

    • New study finds scammers luring migrants with false information via Facebook and WhatsApp

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • What I learned at Wake Forest Baptist Church

      OpinionDavid Ramsey

    • Progressive Baptist congregation on Wake Forest campus votes to close

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Why can’t we accept sexual and gender diversity in humans as well as in all creation?

      OpinionDan McGee

    • I’ve been unaware of my privilege, and if you are a man, you probably have, too

      OpinionRobert P. Sellers

    • South African women’s soccer team success shines a light on gender wage discrimination

      NewsAnthony Akaeze

    • Are left-wing radicals pushing Cracker Barrel to the edge of the slippery slope?

      OpinionBrett Younger

    • It isn’t a church and doesn’t have members, but it is a way to keep United Methodists in the fold as their congregations disaffiliate

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • Al Mohler derides a dead man, and the dead man’s friends aren’t happy

      AnalysisMark Wingfield

    • Rural church offers community development grants through Gratitude Project

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • To be more welcoming, let’s remove our flags

      OpinionJustin Pierson

    • The church needs to do better on monkeypox than it did on HIV, faith leaders say

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • News flash: Not all Baptists are Southern

      OpinionBrian Kaylor

    • Russell Moore named editor in chief of Christianity Today

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Why aren’t we defending Brittney Griner?

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • 40 Congressmen urge IRS to reconsider classification of Family Research Council as a ‘church’

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • SBC president says he tried to enlist more women for sexual abuse task force but got turned down repeatedly

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • At long last, Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy appears to be dead

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Some evangelical leaders see FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago as evidence of the religious persecution coming to them

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • New study finds scammers luring migrants with false information via Facebook and WhatsApp

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Progressive Baptist congregation on Wake Forest campus votes to close

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • South African women’s soccer team success shines a light on gender wage discrimination

      NewsAnthony Akaeze

    • It isn’t a church and doesn’t have members, but it is a way to keep United Methodists in the fold as their congregations disaffiliate

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • Rural church offers community development grants through Gratitude Project

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • The church needs to do better on monkeypox than it did on HIV, faith leaders say

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Russell Moore named editor in chief of Christianity Today

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • 40 Congressmen urge IRS to reconsider classification of Family Research Council as a ‘church’

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Online religion content isn’t luring Millennials away from in-person church

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Study finds congregational leaders report LGBTQ conversations are worth the pain

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • There’s something odd about this Mary, did you know?

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Cuban government clamps down more on religion

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • September symposium will celebrate life and legacy of John Claypool

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Faith leaders urge Congress to fund help for families torn apart by Trump’s ‘cruel’ family separation policy

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • It’s possible some senior adults in your church need help with medical costs or food but won’t say anything

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • It’s still ‘Christians only’ at this Tennessee Methodist adoption agency

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • War in Ukraine transforms churches into centers of care

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Distinguished preaching professor says he was fired from Southwestern Seminary; administrators say he quit

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • As frustration and misinformation mount, United Methodist Church’s reputation takes a beating

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • Want to lower grocery prices? Urge Senate to pass Farm Workforce Modernization Act, panelists say

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • In applauding Victor Orban, U.S. conservatives call their shot

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • Christian nationalism is a danger to our nation

      OpinionMarvin McMickle

    • Advice from a sunflower

      OpinionPhawnda Moore

    • What I learned at Wake Forest Baptist Church

      OpinionDavid Ramsey

    • Why can’t we accept sexual and gender diversity in humans as well as in all creation?

      OpinionDan McGee

    • I’ve been unaware of my privilege, and if you are a man, you probably have, too

      OpinionRobert P. Sellers

    • Are left-wing radicals pushing Cracker Barrel to the edge of the slippery slope?

      OpinionBrett Younger

    • To be more welcoming, let’s remove our flags

      OpinionJustin Pierson

    • News flash: Not all Baptists are Southern

      OpinionBrian Kaylor

    • Why aren’t we defending Brittney Griner?

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • A school administrator reflects on rebuilding relationships between schools and homes

      OpinionStanton Eugene Lawrence

    • Judging the stripper and the carouser in ourselves at the Communion table

      OpinionBrad Bull

    • After the Guidepost report, we need to know more about FBC Woodstock’s City of Refuge and NAMB’s support for it: Was ‘moral failures’ code for sexual abuse?

      OpinionJoanna Sullivan

    • Forsaking Baal for the God who is in recovery

      OpinionBill Leonard, Senior Columnist

    • Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King and Critical Race Theory

      OpinionKen Zagacki

    • What evangelicals won’t tell you about the actual sin of Sodom

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • Giving birth in prison: The grief of separation, the grace of presence

      OpinionKathy Manis Findley

    • Dear Denny Burk, your view of gender is not biblical, it is dangerous

      OpinionEllie Dote

    • Roger Williams, the father of American deconstruction

      OpinionAlan Bean

    • Why I’m an LGBTQ ally who won’t boycott Chick-fil-A

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • Do the arts in church still matter?

      OpinionDoug Haney

    • When Christianity becomes toxic ‘Christianism’

      OpinionDavid Gushee, Senior Columnist

    • When a friend went to prison for murder, the words of Jesus took on new meaning

      OpinionAllan Smith

    • What should we think of celebrities for Jesus?

      OpinionKatelyn Beaty

    • Dealing with the truth: An interview with Sarah Churchwell on Gone with the Wind, the Lost Cause and Donald Trump

      OpinionGreg Garrett, Senior Columnist

    • Ben & Jerry’s fears its new Israeli owner could sell ‘Judea and Samaria’ ice cream in latest court hearing

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Why Alexander Hamilton gave his heart to Jesus at a Texas church this weekend

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Baby Blues: How to Face the Church’s Growing Fertility Crisis

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Orthodox Alaska Part 2: The Beatles, Bees And Orthodoxy Animated In One Man’s Life

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Hundreds of thousands gather for mass prayer in Baghdad

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Ukrainian seminary professor faces difficult decisions

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Nondenominational Churches Are Adding Millions of Members. Where Are They Coming From?

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • The Religious Right’s Agenda Is Center Stage Again — And It’s As Unpopular As Ever

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • After Trump, Christian nationalist ideas are going mainstream – despite a history of violence

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • At flashpoint Jerusalem holy site, whispered prayers defy unwritten accord

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Assemblies of God Ordains Record Number of Women

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck debate God’s position on abortion on ‘The View’

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Pope Francis’ Pilgrimage of Penance: A Step on the Nonviolent Journey

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Christian flag in speech battle flies, briefly, over Boston

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • A group of Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn is reviving the golden age of cantorial music

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • At Lambeth, Anglican Communion abandons vote on same-sex marriage

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Oglala Sioux ban missionary, require ministries to register

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • White Southern Evangelicals Are Leaving the Church

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Kansas voters resoundingly protect their access to abortion

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Sikh Americans honor 10th anniversary of Oak Creek shooting

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Congress is considering making same-sex marriage federal law – a political scientist explains how this issue became less polarized over time

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • When does conflict become spiritual abuse? Churches large and small face that question.

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Pope to Kazakhstan Sept. 13-15, may meet Russia patriarch

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • When ‘Pro-Life’ Isn’t Enough: Abortion ‘Abolitionists’ Speak Up

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Conflict at diverse Austin church leads to claims of spiritual abuse

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    Conversations that Matter.

    © 2022 Baptist News Global. All rights reserved.

    Want to share a story? We hope you will! Read our republishing, terms of use and privacy policies here.

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS