God Healed Me in a Way I Never Saw Coming

SPEAKER_01: Hey, this is Kevin Lowe, and you are listening to episode number 33.

I'm super excited to have you joining me today on the podcast.

And if you are new here, well, you might not notice anything different, but if you've been around for a while, you probably picked up on a slight name change to the podcast.

We had been going by the lowdown on life and travel and now have updated it to the lowdown with Kevin Lowe.

And that was just something I decided thought it would uh a little bit better fit what the podcast is and where I want the podcast to go.

And so, anyways, the podcast, it's kind of uh getting a fresh new start in spring.

And I've got a new name.

I've got an awesome new website coming out that's going to pair the podcast with my blog.

So I will keep you updated on when that comes out and when that website is ready for me to share with the world.

Anyways, super excited to have you here today.

And this episode is being released the week of Easter.

Easter is coming up this Sunday.

And well, I thought it was a perfect opportunity for me to share with you a part of my life that really makes me who I am.

It shaped me into the person I am.

And that, of course, is my faith.

I am a Christian, and to be quite honest, I don't know how I could have done life without my faith, without my relationship with Jesus.

And that's what I wanted to share with you today.

Now, if you're listening to this episode, when it comes out, you know, we have Easter coming up.

I do have to tell you, if you don't already have a church that you attend, I have two amazing ones to mention to you.

I'm a member of Oasis Church, which they are located in Ormond Beach, Florida, here where I live.

And I actually have the pastor of Oasis going to be on the podcast next week.

But I want to tell you about Oasis.

And then also, no matter where you are in the world, I also have to mention another church that I like to consider myself a part of, and that is Red Rocks Church.

Red Rocks is literally all over the world with campuses everywhere from Colorado to Ireland, and you name it, Red Rocks is there.

And what's so awesome about Red Rocks is they're online.

So you don't have to be in any of the cities where they actually have campuses to be part of their church family.

I'll be sure to leave information for both of those churches in the show notes.

Okay, guys, I think it's time for us to go ahead and get on with today's episode.

So I hope you enjoy.

I can't talk about my faith, my walk with Christ without mentioning my grandmother, who I call Nana.

You're going to hear Nana mentioned throughout today's episode, and that's for good reason.

Because Nana is the person who literally taught me about Jesus, is the person who's still today who I talk to about things with my faith that I quite honestly don't tell many other people.

But Nana's one of those.

And my grandmother, oh my gosh, she's just one of the most amazing people on this planet.

And the fact that I can talk with her so openly about my faith, about my relationship with Jesus, I don't know.

It just really makes it something special.

So, anyways, that's where we kind of start out as I share my walk with Christ.

Back when I was young, starting in middle school, my mom would drop me off at Nana's house each morning on her way to work.

And so I would get dropped off at my grandparents.

My papa was already gone to work.

And so it was just me and Nana in the mornings.

Now, I was not a fan of school, and especially this time period in my life, this was middle school, so sixth through eighth grade.

And I absolutely despise school, hated it with a passion, would rather be sick with the flu, laid up in bed than go to school.

So it's no surprise that the mornings at Nana's were without a doubt my favorite part of the whole school day.

And I don't know, maybe that was also because I got to hang out with Nana in the mornings and got to eat really good.

Now, Nana, Nana is from South Georgia.

And let me tell you, the woman knows how to cook some food.

And so that was the best part about going over to Nana's house before school.

She would always make me basically whatever I wanted.

From if we wanted to go low-key, that was something simple like a fried egg sandwich with bacon.

Or if it was a really special day, one of my favorite things was Nana's homemade pancakes, which I always loved to get a little bit adventurous with.

And my favorite variety was she would put bananas and chocolate chips inside the pancakes.

And then I would use some delicious boysenberry syrup on them.

Oh my gosh.

Combine that with a couple of sausage patties Nana just fried up.

And baby, we are sitting good.

Now, some days I would walk in, maybe thinking about something for breakfast, but I'd walk in and I'd immediately hear oil frying.

And that meant something super good because Nana, she used to take those canned biscuits, and she would take each of the biscuits and she would take it in her fingers and kind of pull it apart so that it formed a little hole in the center.

She then would drop those in that hot grease and fry them and make little donuts.

As soon as they came out of the hot oil, she then put them in a brown paper bag that was full of powdered sugar or cinnamon mixture and give them a toss before piling them onto my plate.

Oh my gosh, talk about good eating.

So, anyways, that was the awesome part about being at Dana's in the morning.

But then the other part was after breakfast, me and her, we would always chill out in the family room watching the Today show.

And also Nana would spend that time if there was maybe a quiz coming up that day.

She would, you know, take my notes and be quizzing me.

But there came a point when Nana, through her church, she had taken part in a program called, I believe it was called like the faith program.

And basically it was where these groups of adults would join together and they would go to different houses, different members of the church houses, and visit with them and just share with them about Jesus, about, you know, Christ.

And anyways, to do this, Nana had to memorize this entire little booklet that she had.

And it was all the different stuff that she had to memorize the different things that she had to say while she was out on this, you know, with her group.

And I'll back up by saying this was totally out of Nana's realm.

This is not something that Nana normally would have volunteered to do.

But for some reason, one Sunday at church, when the announcement was made, for some reason she found herself signing up.

And so there we were each morning.

I'd be sitting in the recliner on one side of the family room, and Nana would be on the couch on the other side.

And she would be having to, you know, recite the whole thing to me.

And I'd follow along in the book, being sure she wasn't missing a word.

And of course, I'd always be sure that, you know, if she did mess up, I'd be like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, back it up, back it up, Nana.

You've made a mistake, you know.

So, anyways, what was really awesome, I don't know how long we rehearsed this.

And finally we had gotten to the point where Nana had it down.

And so we're sitting there one day, and I'm following along in the book, and Nana was hitting it, you know, right on par.

But all of a sudden, it was like the mood in the room changed.

And Nana, she came over to me as she was still talking.

And I remember she knelt down in front of me and she she took my hands into her hands.

And right there, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

It was a moment that I will never forget as long as I live.

I can remember both of us just sitting there.

Like I said, her knelt down in front of me, our heads bowed.

And I remember just crying, crying just with just overwhelming, just just joy, overwhelming just feeling of the presence of God.

And that was just, it was amazing.

That was, I believe I was in the sixth grade.

And that that moment, that moment, I never could have imagined what impact that moment would have on the rest of my life.

Because it was only about five years later, as a junior in high school, when my faith would be put to the test.

And if you've listened to the podcast for a while, listened to some of the beginning episodes, I talk about what happened to me in my junior year of high school.

And that being that I had a tumor found, something completely unexpected.

But yes, it had been discovered through an MRI that I had a brain tumor.

It was very serious, had to be removed basically immediately.

And so there I was.

But, you know, through it all, I was never scared.

Yes, I had the moments when when we got the news from the doctor that I did have a brain tumor.

And I remember the first time meeting with the neurosurgeon.

I remember coming home just crying the whole way home from that appointment.

But at the same point, you know, God, God just he gave me this calm, gave me this peace about it.

And and I don't know, maybe it was also just a fact that, you know, everything was supposed to have been perfectly fine with that surgery.

I mean, for me, I I viewed it as I got a a few weeks, a month or so out of school, which was was perfectly awesome.

And, you know, so everything was going to be awesome with that.

But as I've you know told my story before, you know, as it goes, is it didn't all go right.

Nothing went as we thought it was going to.

And and that's where where I say where my my faith was really put to a test.

And that was because, you know, I woke up from that surgery to be left completely blind.

And I wish I could adequately explain to you what it felt like.

Being a Christian, it doesn't mean that bad things are never going to happen to you.

To be quite honest, sometimes I feel like being a Christian, it seems like seems like more bad things happen to you than it does to others.

Um I don't know, don't take that as fact.

I don't know that that's true, but it's just sometimes how it feels.

But as I learn through what happened to me and and realize the importance that my faith played in that, is that you know what?

I sometimes feel like maybe God doesn't let bad things as many bad things happen to people who aren't Christians because they don't have him to get through it.

And I I say this because if it wasn't for God, there's no way I could have gotten through what happened to me.

Jesus has always been there for me.

And, you know, when when we're put to a test, when we have something horrible happen in our life, I feel like you you kind of have two different routes to take.

You have the people who either cling to their faith and their faith becomes stronger, or you have people who pull away and they get angry at God.

For myself, thankfully, I held on to it.

And my mom, my mom always tells this story.

I know I've shared it on this podcast before, but my mom always shares the story is after I had come home from the hospital.

Now, I'll tell you the whole time the hospital, I was there for, I believe a little over two weeks.

I don't remember any of it.

I don't remember anything past the morning of surgery being rolled into the operating room.

So for literally like two weeks in the hospital, which I was in the pediatric ICU, I don't remember any of that time.

I don't even, my memory is very vague even after I came home.

But my mom said shortly after coming home from the hospital that she had asked me one morning who it is that she hears me talking to at night after I go to bed.

And she said that I told her I talked to Jesus, that he's always there for me.

And that, I think, even for myself, coming from a perspective of it's a memory I do not remember.

So it's almost like a third person, you know, point of view, is what a powerful example of what my faith did for me, what my relationship with Jesus did for me at that time.

And so there it was.

You know, I clung to my faith.

I I can remember just praying nonstop.

And of course, after it happened, of course, there was nothing that I prayed for more than for God to heal me, for God to let me see again.

And I can honestly remember everyone I knew, from my family to people who I had never even met before, were praying for me, praying that I would get my sight back.

And, you know, it was something that for a very, very long time, that is the only thing I ever prayed for, was God, just please give me my sight back.

Let me see again.

And I went through those times when when you know you bargain with God.

And, you know, God, please, if if you just give me my sight back, I'll I'll do this, I'll I'll be a better Christian.

You know, whatever I can do, just give it back to me.

But God's in control.

And, you know, God has a plan, and and his plan that I did not obviously realize was for me to go blind.

But I can tell you that from the time I was born, God knew it was my plan.

He knew all along what was going to happen to me, and he prepared me for it.

I can look back now on my life and I can literally see how every aspect of my childhood, leading up to the day that I became blind at 17 years old, everything in my life revolved around preparing me for that day.

He made me a person who was very organized.

Even as a child, I can remember always loving one of my favorite things to do for my mom was I would rearrange the kitchen pantry.

All the canned goods would be out of whack, and I'd go in there and I'd take everything out of the pantry and rearrange it so that everything was perfectly organized.

Well, I can tell you, now being blind, having a personality that has myself organized is pivotal.

Another thing is God let me experience so much in those first 17 years of my life.

Sometimes I feel like my parents got a little bit aggravated with my constant jumping around of different activities and sports and things that I wanted to do.

It was, you know, at one point, you know, I was maybe wanting to surf.

So I got the best surfboard and did that.

And then all of a sudden I'm switching over to, you know, I want a boogie board.

And so I'm doing that, or a skateboard, or or BMXing, or, you know, my dirt biking, whatever it was.

But honestly, what it was was God was letting me experience as much as I could possibly experience while I could still see.

He also gave me the ability to travel.

Me and my family, I got to see places that some people never get to see in their lifetime, like Alaska.

I can remember us driving all over Alaska.

And I remember just so much of the views.

It was, you know, like desolate country, but it was beautiful.

And I can remember walking up and hiking up a glacier and just looking and seeing just the magnificence.

And I can remember staring as we would be driving and looking at the just crystal clear blue skies.

And all of a sudden, you'd see a bald eagle just soaring through the sky.

And it was the most amazing sights ever.

God let me experience all of that because he knew what was going to happen.

And he also let my Nana be there for me to bring me to know him, to trust him, to begin to build a relationship with him because he knew what I was going to go through.

And uh, like I said, I I like to say that my walk with Christ, it's a relationship.

As I like to say, my relationship with Jesus is that because it truly is a relationship.

I feel as though every day it gets stronger.

And, you know, there's some sometimes some things that I do are are very personal.

And and that's why I like to say it's I think of God as a friend, as not only my creator, my savior, but also as a friend, as somebody who I have to talk to, to be there with.

And and so at a young age, after being saved, I developed this little thing that I've honestly never told anyone except for my Nana.

And that was I had started this little thing that after I would finish praying, I would always look up towards the sky and I would give just two little winks.

And it was a wink for God and a wink for Jesus.

And I don't know why I started doing that, but I did.

And it was just something personal between me and me and God, me and Jesus.

And I remember at some point, obviously, I shared it with my nana and I told her what I did.

And so I think it's so touching that during those two weeks when I was in the hospital, my nana was there every day, along with my mom and so much of my family.

My family support was absolutely just out of this world.

But my nana said every night before she would, you know, leave the hospital and walk across the street to the hotel that my grandparents were staying in, she said every night she would pray with me before she would leave.

And she said at the end of the prayer, she would look up and give two little winks.

And I don't know, it almost makes me want to cry when I think about it.

All that my family was going through, the hurt that they were experiencing.

And yet she could remember that little thing that I did.

And it was just something awesome that I think that she did for me.

I don't know.

It's just, it's, it touches me so much when I think of that, of her doing that, giving my two little winks to God and Jesus.

Anyways, like I said, my my walk with Christ has has been been one that just has always been there with me.

Now, there's been moments, many moments, that I have gotten mad at God.

And I can remember in those years after what happened to me, after becoming blind, I can remember laying in bed at night, and I can remember just pounding my pillow, absolutely would just be in hysteric sobbing.

And I would pound my pillow and I would get so mad at God.

And I can remember just telling him exactly what was on my mind and letting him know just how angry I was at him, that why he would do this to me.

How could he do this to me?

But every single time when I would finish and I would calm down, I can remember laying there, head in my pillow, face down.

And I can remember just crying and sitting there and begging God to please forgive me.

God, just please, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

I didn't mean it.

Don't leave me.

I always said that don't leave me, don't be mad at me.

I can't, I can't do any of this without you, God.

And that's how life was for a really long time was I just held on to God and always thinking, of course, so many of Did that God was going to heal me, that he was going to let me see again.

But sometimes you have to realize that even though God can do things, he has a plan.

And I didn't realize it then, that he knew that I would serve a greater purpose in this life without my sight than with it.

And when I was able to finally come to that realization and not only say it, but believe it in my heart, my life has been better for it.

I still to this day pray not every night, not every day, but I do still pray on occasion, asking God to heal me, to let me see again.

Because I'll be honest, as much advancements as there is in technology and all of that, I still, trust me, I would love to see.

I would love to wake up tomorrow morning and open my eyes and be able to see again.

But I realize that God is in control.

And I don't know, I guess sometimes I find some type of find comfort in that, knowing that I'm not the one in control, that God is, and that I just need to just go with it and do what I think he wants me to do with my life.

Now, I want to share with you a couple of things.

And that is that my walk with Christ, my journey as a Christian, you know, as I said early, it's a relationship.

It continues to grow.

It doesn't get to a point where all of a sudden, oh, you know, you're the best Christian you can get, and you know, and that's it.

It doesn't.

It's just this amazing relationship that continues to build stronger and stronger.

And even though God, He never has let me see again in the way that I wanted to see, He did, though, grant that prayer.

And that came in 2017.

So it's been almost four years ago now, when everything came together that year.

And I found out about this guy out in California, Brian Bushway.

And he was training people to see with echolocation as part of an organization.

And it was this group of uh probably like two or three instructors, and they work with people teaching them to see using echolocation.

Now, I shared about this in a previous episode, which I will be sure to link it in the show notes.

But it was amazing stuff.

And at first it was one of those things that was very skeptical of.

I mean, it sounds like science fiction.

But, anyways, I'll kind of, you know, fast track to the point I'm making here is I ended up finding myself traveling out to Los Angeles, California with my mom and sister to go train with this guy, Brian Bushway, for a week.

Now, what was amazing though was is on the third day of training, we were working in the Airbnb apartment we were staying in.

And it was just me and me and my instructor, Brian Bushway, working.

And up until this point, I had been working with Brian each day.

And, you know, he was teaching me how to do the echolocation where you do a little click of your tongue, and and he's telling me how, you know, your your brain, the visual cortex of your brain will begin to see through sound.

It will begin to interpret the echo and form an acoustic image.

And so up until this day, I'm just like, you know, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, but not really understanding.

But it was on this day I remember that all of a sudden in the apartment, it all came together.

And I remember just like that, I could see the apartment.

Now, it wasn't like I used to be able to see.

The walls were like a fuzzy gray color.

And it's kind of like, but literally, I could use this clicking technique with my tongue against the roof of my mouth, and I could see the walls of the apartment.

I could literally walk up to the wall, walk along it without ever even touching it.

And then I could even see the doorway into the kitchen.

It was like this deep hollow black color.

And I remember at that moment thinking to myself, God, you granted my prayers.

You let me see again.

And that's one of those things where I have to say, God, He works in mysterious ways.

I know that's a popular, popular thing that people say, but it's true.

Because we are so limited in what we know and what we think.

And here God was.

He let me see again.

He lets me see again to this day, but in a different way, by way of echolocation.

Now, there's another time, and this time was very recent, literally just about a month ago.

And I'm gonna share this with you.

I've not shared this with anyone but my nana and I think my mom and sister, just those very close to me.

Because there's been this person in my life who had been there growing up as a teenager, you know, up until the time of my surgery when I went blind.

And this person, he caused a lot of pain to the people I loved the most.

And I don't know that there's any person, I know there is no other person in this world that for years I could say that I hated.

But this person I hated.

The pain that they caused my family, just it could not be forgiven.

I could not forgive them.

And no matter how many, even the family members that they hurt would tell me, Kevin, you have to just let it go.

You have to move on with your life.

You know, I couldn't because to forgive this person meant that I was saying what they did to my family was okay.

And it wasn't okay.

Matter of fact, this person literally would give me nightmares at night.

I would wake up so many times, and I'm talking for years and years, and this person hasn't even been in my life now for gosh, probably, oh my goodness, I can't even tell you how many years, but for a very long time.

And yet still I would have nightmares about this person.

Well, one day I was at home, no one else was home.

It was just me.

I'm standing in the kitchen one afternoon, probably about a month ago.

And I'm standing in the kitchen, I was cutting up a grapefruit for an afternoon snack.

And all of a sudden, I I can only explain it as the presence of God, the Holy Spirit, completely just enveloped me.

And as I stood there, still slicing up this grapefruit, I found myself literally saying the words, I forgive you.

And I was talking about this person.

And it was as if I was saying it out loud, but it wasn't even from my own power.

And I literally sat there repeatedly, I forgive you.

I forgive you.

And I can remember I just I started crying, still not even understanding what was even going on.

Why was I even saying this?

I hadn't even thought of this person, and I couldn't tell you how long hadn't had any recent nightmares or anything like that.

And yet here I am cutting up a grapefruit, and now I'm telling this person that I forgive you.

And I can tell you, God's timing, it's definitely not our own timing.

He does things on his own schedule, that is for certain.

Why then?

I don't know.

But for some reason, then he came in and the Holy Spirit took hold of me and let me forgive that person.

And I can tell you to this day, whenever that person pops into my mind, I literally cannot even think of something bad, of how much I dislike that person, how much I hate that person, what they did to my family.

How could I ever forgive them?

None of that can even come into my mind.

It's nothing but I forgive you.

I forgive you.

And I just I say this to you because for anybody listening, your journey as a Christian, your relationship with with God, with Jesus, your walk with Christ, it never ends.

It never ever ends.

And little moments like that means so much because it gives you this opportunity to get a little taste, a little piece of what God is, what heaven will be.

I recently heard on a YouTube video I was watching, and the the lady speaking, she referenced life as nothing but a long walk to heaven.

And I thought, what a beautiful way to think about life, is that we're all just walking together on this long walk headed to heaven.

And that day, God let me experience a little peace of the type of just overwhelming peace of just nothing but love that we will experience in heaven.

And I'll just I'll never forget that day.

Again, it's these little moments that make up my walk with Christ.

As I always say, I I have a saying, uh, a little equation that I often uh equate to of my life when people ask how I do it, how have I gotten where I am?

And I always say it's, you know, faith plus my family has equaled a life worth living for me.

And that's the truth.

And like I said, my faith, my relationship with God, with Jesus, it's just, it shaped me into the man that I am.

It makes me want to be a better person.

Anyways, I just wanted to share it with you guys.

I thought right now is a perfect opportunity.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the episode.

I hope you didn't find my my whole uh rambling on about my my walk with Christ boring or anything.

I felt like uh, I don't know.

It it's touching to me, but I never know how it's going to sound to somebody else.

So, anyways, my hope is that um maybe it can just help you, especially.

Like I said, if if you don't already have a relationship with God, I I pray that you will find that in your life.

And I'm telling you, it will change your life from this day forward.

SPEAKER_00: And that's the lowdown with Kevin Lowe.

Don't forget to check out the show notes for all of today's mentioned links.