Sean from Seattle writes, and to ask this past John over the past year, my brother fought

a cancerous tumor in his optic nerve.

He is only 20 years old.

By the grace of God, the cancer is gone now, but he is blind.

When I talk to him, he tells me that he knows that he doesn't get to have a life anymore.

What words of encouragement might you have for my dear brother or for any young man or

woman who feels like a physical disability has taken their life away?

I have sometimes stood in the shower after running a few miles and experienced a strange,

bright, yellow donut in my vision that sometimes seems like it's going to completely take over

my sight and blot out everything else.

It's been very scary at times, and I asked the doctor about it at one time, and he said,

well, it's in your brain, not in your eyes.

And I wasn't sure whether to be encouraged by that or not.

At any rate, my point is this, in those times, I have had a very vivid thought about

going blind, and I have wondered what life would be like, and whether I would sink into

a depression that I wouldn't be able to get out of.

I don't have any romantic notions that it would be easy, or that I would have a heroic

attitude of making the best of it.

My guess is, given the way I'm wired, it would be a long, hard struggle.

Just to learn how to survive, and to want to survive, and then even harder to feel

like life is worth living, and that my life might be useful again.

So I don't want Sean or his brother to feel like my response is presumptuous as if blindness

...