Miracles

Do you believe in miracles?

It’s a question that most of us have heard at some point in our lives. The dictionary defines a miracle as “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.”

People have many different opinions on these so-called miracles, events that simply can’t be explained. Some people stand in awe and amazement while others are suspicious and doubtful. I, for one, am a strong believer in miracles.

I’ve been fortunate (in my opinion) to have witnessed several miracles in my 21 years of living. The first time I remember seeing a true miracle was when I was in eighth grade. A lady in my church, whom I had been very close to since birth, went in for surgery one day. It was a minor surgery that was expected to be successful, so I wasn’t worried or thinking much of it. I still remember my mom picking me up from school the next day and telling me that we were going to the hospital because Mrs. Janet wasn’t doing well at all. Something had gone terribly wrong and her body was basically shutting down. The doctors were doing everything they could, but they didn’t expect her to make it through the night. I gathered with almost all of my church family in the ICU waiting room that night. We prayed, waited, and comforted each other. We took turns visiting Mrs. Janet and sat in disbelief at the horrible turn of events. All throughout the night, the doctors continued to give reports void of any hope.

God obviously wasn’t through with Mrs. Janet. She made it through the night and continued to improve. She woke up from her coma about a week later and, after a series of more ups and downs, finally got to go home and get back to her normal life. She was more limited after that, but she was still faithful. She lived for five more years and used all of that time lifting others up and telling the story of the miracle God worked in her life. Seeing God at work in Mrs. Janet strengthened my faith tremendously as a young girl. Even now, I look back on that time and I am amazed at how powerfully He worked and proved all of the doctors wrong.

A few months ago, I was helping lead worship at church and we were singing a song called “Miracles.” As we sang the song, I reflected on the miracle that God has worked in my life over the past year in leading me through the darkest season of my life in which I was crippled by anxiety and panic disorder. I began to look around the room at different people and families who had experienced miracles in their lives and marveled at the truth of the words in the song about God being a God of miracles. But then I looked around at other people, ones who had experienced tragedy and heartache, both recently and in the past. I couldn’t help but think, “why didn’t they get their miracle?” As I sang the words, “the God who brings the dead to life,” I thought, “their loved ones aren’t coming back to life. It doesn’t seem fair.” I thought about the loss of my grandma and my uncle three years ago. Both of their deaths hit me hard and I have often wondered why God didn’t heal them and let them stay. It just doesn’t make sense.

 Almost immediately, it’s as if God were answering me and it occurred to me that the fact that my loved ones, along with those of my church family, are in heaven is a miracle in itself. Jesus made a way for us to live after we die. I know we’ve heard it over and over, but think about it. God loved us so much that He sent His son to die for our sins. He lived the perfect life that we couldn’t live and became the perfect sacrifice for all we’ve ever done wrong. If we accept and believe that, we are completely forgiven! When God looks at us, He sees the blood of Jesus that makes us clean and covers our sin. And because of this, we will never die! Physically, we will, but our spirit will live forever in heaven with Jesus. Watching my grandma and uncle take their final breath and enter into eternity was the most heartbreaking, yet miraculous, thing I have ever witnessed. One moment, they were here on earth struggling to breathe, and in the very next moment, they were completely still. Their bodies were lifeless, but they had never been more alive because Jesus welcomed them into their new home in heaven. That is a miracle for sure!

The next thought I had was, “The fact that these people who have lost their loved ones so tragically or too soon are still making it every day is a miracle. They are surviving a devastating, unimaginable loss. They keep going no matter how hard it is. God sustains them even after that much heartbreak that we think is just too much for a person to bear. That is a miracle.”

Ever since that day, I’ve had a new perspective. Miracles aren’t always big, spectacular events that the whole world raves over. Sometimes, they are the small moments in which you see something and think, “that had to be God.” When you think about it, every day is a miracle. The fact that the sun rises every morning and we wake up able to breathe and enjoy a new day, the way we are able to fall asleep at night and look at the moon and stars as the sky goes black, the people we get to interact with and the love we have in our hearts for them, and countless other things. God’s works can’t be explained.

Next time you are faced with an overwhelming situation and find yourself praying for a miracle, I would encourage you to remember that miracles come in many different ways. They don’t all look the same and sometimes, we have to look a little harder for them. But they are there. They are always there. Because we serve a God of miracles. 

Miracles: 

https://youtu.be/5vUvi-A75BU