When Jennifer Rothschild first started losing her vision at 15, she was horrified that she could no longer read her Bible. Retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited disease that caused her vision to gradually decline, quickly left her blind.
In Romans 8:28 style, God used her great loss for a greater good. Although she no longer sees with natural eyes, the Lord has opened up her spiritual vision and new doors of opportunity to glorify His name.
Because she refused to allow a disability to define her, she grew up to become a loving wife and mother, author, national speaker and Bible teacher who exposes the works of darkness and encourages believers to press through it. Without natural sight, Rothschild learned to follow and trust the Lord’s voice, and He responded by giving her unbelievable opportunities.
“I’ve been able to encourage and equip others who are walking through any kind of darkness—and there are many kinds,” she says. “God really just turned that into a ministry. I began to speak, sharing my testimony. I was a singer at the time, and He just opened doors for me to minister in churches through song and testimony. He turned that into an opportunity to write a book, my testimony. … I look at my story and I think I am such a picture of how God blesses us in very unique ways, sometimes in very difficult ways, and He redeems everything.”
Her experience has taught her the truth of Philippians 4:13.
“People look at my life and think blindness is such a limitation,” Rothschild says. “Or someone reading this article may have a physical condition that holds them back, or someone may have a relationship that they feel limits them. … But I think the greatest limitation is when we harden our hearts against what God wants to do in our lives. To live beyond limits means we never choose to think no before we think yes, because with God all things are possible.”
In her new books, Invisible and Invisible for Young Women, Rothschild empowers women to move beyond insecurity and spiritual blindness and into the love of Christ.
“We keep trying to find ourselves, because we don’t realize we are already found in Christ,” Rothschild says. “I wrote the books to protect women from wandering from the God who gives them identity, or if they have wandered from the God who gives them identity, to show how God will redeem them from any shackles or insecurity they’re bound up in to be who He created them to be.”