Remembering Miracles
On Monday, a friend asked me if I could recall a time in my life when something so outrageous and unexplainable happened that it could only be defined as a miracle. A miracle immediately came to mind, but it wasn’t mine. Instead, it was one my dad often relayed to my sisters and me.
When my dad was young and walking in the woods near his home, a pack of wild dogs started chasing him. He had a split second to act, and somehow, he was able to scale a tall oak tree like a squirrel, thereby evading the dogs. The dogs wouldn’t give up easily, though, and they proceeded to circle the tree and bark and jump at him for hours and hours. At dusk, the dogs finally gave up and left. Only then, after waiting a little while longer, did Dad carefully get down from the tree and head home to his worried parents.
On a related note, I can’t really fathom sitting anywhere, let alone in a tree, for hours on end without a phone or at least a book to entertain me. But this was the 1950’s, and in those days, kids and adults alike had to use our own brains for that kind of thing.
Anyway, as I remember Dad telling it, the tree he climbed was very tall and without low branches, so it was a miracle he made it up that tree like he did. I believe it.
But back to my friend’s question.
I thought about a couple of other miracles my kids and husband have experienced, but I still couldn’t remember one of my own. Pondering on this a few days later, this is what I’ve come to see:
I used to have a harder heart, a more fearful way about me, and a critical spirit that could rear its head all too often. That’s not to say I’ve been completely cured of those things; I’m a work in progress, after all. It’s true that I’m not what I hope to become, but it’s also true that I’m not what I was, either. The edges of my heart are a lot softer than they used to be, and for that I thank God.
What’s more, I always wanted to be a wife, mama, and writer, and I’m blessed to be all three. As a side note, I’ve also wanted to be an anchor for the Today Show, but hey…some dreams must be let go. (Although if you’ll forgive my lack of a journalism degree or any experience—unless you count working on my middle school newspaper—I’m here, Savannah, Craig, and Co.!)
But herein lies my point: Perhaps like me you can’t remember a huge, miraculous event in your own life. Or maybe you can look back and see the road paved with a million daily miracles like pebbles under your feet. Or maybe both.
And then you see that really, your whole life is a miracle.
Perhaps I have experienced a singular, spectacular miracle, and I just don’t remember it. But I know with bonafide clarity that I’ve experienced daily miracles on the regular—a running testimony of God’s grace.
May there be ever more to come in each of our lives!