How Losing My Physical Sight Changed My Faith and Spiritual Vision

While answering interview questions about my memoir, I was asked this question that required deep reflection:

How did losing your physical sight affect your faith and spiritual vision?
Becoming blind changed me in ways I never anticipated.
First, it taught me how to listen—more carefully, more patiently, and more deeply. Without visual cues, I learned to observe the world and people through attentiveness rather than assumption.

Second, blindness turned my focus inward. It forced me to confront my own heart instead of scrutinizing others. I became far more aware of my own faults and far less interested in finding them in those around me. As Scripture reminds us, transformation begins within—and I learned, sometimes painfully, that discernment must always be accompanied by humility.

But perhaps the greatest change blindness brought was an upward one. It shifted my perspective toward eternity. I began to live with a heightened awareness that this life is not the final measure of meaning. How I think, speak, and act carries spiritual weight.

Scripture calls us to “set our minds on things above, not on earthly things,” and blindness impressed that truth upon my daily life.
Learning to live as a blind individual—enduring loss, adaptation, and uncertainty—has shaped me to be more Christlike. It has stirred in me a deeper desire to reflect God’s character while I am here on earth: to be gentler, slower to judge, quicker to forgive, and more intentional in loving others.

I find myself dwelling less in bitterness, rage, and anger—and learning instead to live in compassion, kindness, humility, and love.