The end of one road, as Bryson Fulp discovered, is sometimes the start of another.

Before he went for a morning run April 23, he’d seen six different doctors at three different clinics for 10 months. None could explain the blurred vision, and light sensitivity that had appeared without warning and eventually left him blind in his left eye, or the migraine-like headaches.

MRI scans, blood work, and other tests couldn’t solve the medical mystery, either. The sensitivity to light was so extreme that Bryson, 16, would duck in the car seat at night and keep his eyes closed to avoid the glare from oncoming traffic.

Relief became retreating to his darkened room where, trying to stay active, he began lifting weights that fellow Triad Baptist member Gary and Kay Hall gave him when they ran into his family at one of his appointments.

“This was a major answer to prayer,” his mom, Wendy, says of the weights. “It was something he could do at home! Bryson was excited to have a way to expend energy and be active without the pain from the light of going outside. He began to use the equipment and really developed an interest in physical fitness.”

And that, in turn, piqued Bryson’s interest about Triad’s new Run for God ministry and 5K race on June 20.

“I wanted to improve my cardiovascular health,” says Bryson of what prompted him to begin training for the race by running the 2-mile route to the end of the road by his house and back.

He ran again April 23 but something different happened this time as he approached the end of the road at 7:30 a.m.

“I was sprinting to get my heart rate up and could hear my heart beating intensely in the back of my head to the point where I considered stopping but kept going,” Bryson says. “All of the sudden, I heard a loud ‘POP!’ in what I can only assume was in my occipital lobe (the part of the brain that controls vision), and my world went black.

“I thought to myself, ‘It finally happened. I’m completely blind.’ I felt myself start to lose balance so I placed a hand on the asphalt. It felt like it was there forever. Then everything started to fade back in until I could see with both eyes. Everything was colorful again, and I could see normally.”

Bryson ran home to give Wendy and his sisters the news. “My mom was skeptical at first and made me submit to several, ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ questions,” Bryson laughs, “but when she saw that I could see again, she made an emergency appointment at Wake Forest Baptist Health, went outside, and had a good cry.

“She called my dad at work, and I’m pretty sure he cried too.”

The tests that afternoon found Bryson’s eyes to be completely normal and his vision 20/15 in both eyes — even better than it had been before he lost partial vision. He needed glasses then, but no more, the eye doctor said.

Bryson went to the neurologist the following week and got the same results: All good, son.

“The PA at the neurology office said to me, ‘Boy, I don’t know what God has for you in life, but, you better tell people that God still does miracles! They need to hear this kind of stuff!,’ ” Bryson says. “I hope to never take my health and well-being for granted as long as I live.”

Wendy and Bryson’s dad, Darrell, who teachers the “Living Epistles” Sunday School class, leads the Sunday evening traditional Bible study, and is UNITE college and career pastor at Triad, attribute Bryson’s healing to prayer and the power of God.

Only God, they say, could use training for a run in His name to heal their son and inspire others weeks before the first runner even toed the start line in the actual race.

“We have told everyone about what God did for Bryson,” Darrell says. “We posted it to social media so our friends all over the world could rejoice with us as well as the many in the TBC family who prayed for Bryson.”

Adds Wendy, “God has shown that He is mighty. He can and will do whatever He pleases. He truly is sovereign over us!”

Learning patience and understanding along a sometimes-difficult way, Wendy adds that she and Darrell are especially grateful that God allowed their children to see His power on display at such an early age and watch Psalm 118:23 demonstrated before their eyes.

The verse reads, “This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes!”

Bryson says he’s still marveling at what God did in his life—and how He did it.

“It’s hard to imagine that God would use preparation for a 5K to heal my eye but that’s what He did,” he says. “It just goes to show that God works in ways that we can’t possibly see or understand until we’re at the end of our road and He decides to make a new way.”