How sad to be one of those people who find their miracles in what they can afford to acquire, who sees their paycheck as a measure of their happiness. Sometimes eyes glued to stocks and bonds reports and bank statements will lose sight of the miraculous to be found in life as they rejoice in the penny they lost.
As a child I didn’t think much about miracles happening to me. Of course I read about saints, healing shrines and visitations of the supernatural to other people but would never have related these hard-to-explain events to my own life. You get a few minutes past age thirty, however, and you start to get introspective. You begin to wonder about arrival at this particular point in life, how you got here and whether you should and/or deserve to be here. You look back and suddenly realize you didn’t get here under your own steam.
I try not to wish people luck. Praying they are given blessings seems so much more fulfilling as life progresses and youth is no longer an option. And as you speed through increasingly higher numbers each birthday, you begin to remember and understand how many beautiful, miraculous and blessed events shaped your formation to the now of today.
The day before I was married, I suddenly remembered an event from my childhood. I was dropped off after school on the right side of a usually quiet road. I was about to race across without a second thought as I did most every afternoon. For some reason, as I turned to dash across the street, I couldn’t move and hung suspended in time for a brief span. In that short moment, a car, seemingly out of no where, raced by. I felt the wind rush past my face and would not have had to reach far in order to actually touch the automobile as it speeded off. If I had been in my usual place that afternoon, I would have been in the direct path of that car. As I completed last minute preparation for the wedding, I finally gave God a long over-due thank you for letting me come to wedding day.
My hardest lesson in life as a married woman was using my time in an organized manner. Even though marriage freed me to be my own boss in a way, certain responsibilities had to be met in order to keep family and marriage on an even keel. It wasn’t an easily learned lesson and I often rebelled against doing what I had to do before indulging in what I wanted to do. I arrived at a Saturday morning one day, eager to spend a couple of hours at the fabric store, taking advantage of the sales. I also had an empty pantry and needed to go grocery shopping. My initial inclination was to enjoy the morning and do the menial later, much later! My Guardian Angel must have been on overtime that day. I found myself doing the right thing (even with lots of mental protests and sulking.) and spent the first part of the day planning the menus, shopping and stocking the cupboards. I was at the grocery store at ten o’clock instead of crowding in the fabric store when it opened at ten. When I got to the fabric store that afternoon, I found out it had been robbed and several of the people had been hurt by the thief. The ones who escaped hurt, had the horrible memory of hiding and praying it would all be over soon. What time did this crime occur? At ten o’clock when the store opened.
One morning I was walking with my then two-year old daughter down a early-morning quiet street. Suddenly two large dogs loomed ahead. I said a quick prayer and calmly crossed to the other side of the street. One of the dogs crossed over and I silently implored my Guardian Angel for help. The dog passed us by and as I breathed a sigh of relief, he doubled back, grabbed my daughter and pulled her from my arms! I screamed but this was an unusually quiet street with zip to zero traffic on a busy day. Suddenly a business truck braked to a stop on the opposite side of the street. The driver chased the dog away and waited until help came and then was gone before I could gather my wits to thank him.
Years ago,now, I miscarried our baby Matthew at four months. We were devastated but had to carry on with the day to day life as a family. While I was paying my bill at the doctor’s office, the receptionist and I were joking about my three little ‘monsters’ that papa was trying to keep under control during my appointment. When I came out of the office, a gentleman who had been in line behind me asked as I joined my family, “Are these your little monsters?” As I affirmed this, he went on to say, “They aren’t little terrors! They are beautiful, little angels, but there should be four of them!” Since Matthew would have been number four, this twisted in my heart. I had only lost him two weeks before. Trying to maintain control, I replied that there were only three and turned to leave. My husband and I had gone several yards when the gentleman called out, “Sir! Sir!” My husband turned to him and the man said, “I will put a good word in for you!” A little more than a year later, I had my fourth little angel.
Whenever the day to day physical side of coping with life wears on my spiritual and I feel to the extreme the pains of being merely human, it helps to take a moment and remember the unexplained episodes of the past. When these times, both good and bad, are viewed as the building blocks of our life, we begin to fathom some of God’s reasons and trust in His Will in dealing with the instances we can’t understand.
“I should not be a Christian but for the miracles.” (St. Augustine)
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