When Kevin Tully was pastor of a Methodist church in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, there was a man he knew who loved to read. The pastor knew the man through the guy’s wife. She was a church member and attended fairly regularly. But Bernie Miller was a man who had been too busy for church, too busy for religion. So though Tully had met him, he didn’t really know him — until his illness. When he was 55 years old, Bernie’s diabetes caused him to go blind.
Bernie later told the pastor that it was his blindness which actually caused him to see. In his words, it was because of his blindness, that he realized he didn’t have it all together. And it was when he lost his sight that he began to see his need for God’s help and strength.
Just before he lost his sight, he began to read the Bible for the first time in his life. After he could no longer see, he asked others to read the Bible to him.
One day, he told his wife of a wonderful change that had come over him. He said he truly felt different, and asked her if she thought it was really possible that God might truly love him and accept him, in spite of his past. He told her he felt more at peace than he had ever felt in his life, and wanted to know if this is what it meant to be saved. She told him, “yes”, and she began to cry – after all, this moment is what she had been praying years for. He started to come to church with his wife, and he even had a favorite hymn — “Amazing Grace.”
All this happened in 1987. One day at church, Bernie told Pastor Tully he’d been accepted for an experimental form of laser surgery on his eyes. The doctors thought it might be possible to restore his sight. The surgery was done, and it worked! He has able to see.
The pastor still recalls that day — Bernie had such a smile on his face! His eyes became more and more focused throughout that day, and for the first time in three years, he saw his wife’s face. They had a simply wonderful day together, just looking at things.
The next morning, Bernie Miller died of a sudden heart attack.
Now – is that a sad story, or a happy one? Was Bernie healed, or not?
At his funeral, everyone stood and sang …
“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound!
That saved a wretch like me —
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.”
Christians don’t really die. They just instantly get 20/20 vision.