Miracles abound all around us. Miracles don't have to be feeding thousands from a few baskets of loaves and fishes, or turning water into wine, or the many miracles described in the Bible.
November 2011, Anne writes,
I don't know if it's the incomprehensible, overwhelming evil that was behind 9-11, or the magnitude of the death and destruction, but ten years later, looking at a picture of the twin towers, or looking at a picture of where the twin towers used to be, most times gives me a lump in my throat, and more often than not a tear in my eye.
I have also experienced a situation similar to Peter Scheibner's. In the mid 60s, while working for American Airlines, I was supposed to be on a plane (commuter carrier) that crashed on take off. All passengers aboard were killed. I was not on board simply because when asked, I agreed to work a shift for a co-worker; a day in the middle of my four day weekend off. Many of the thoughts and emotions Peter Scheibner expressed, I recall thinking and feeling many years ago. Even after more than forty years, I remember those thoughts and emotions when I board a plane in potentially icing conditions.
Through the years there have been other times that God has saved my life through nothing less than a miracle. Instances where people would say it was "luck" or "coincidence." These instances were neither "luck" nor "coincidence," but rather miracles. God's hand.
And my experience this past week, being precisely where God needed me to be, in spite of the fact that I'd rather had not been there, that caused me to be taken by ambulance to Hospital of Univ. of Pennsylvania, which is a world class cardiac facility. And to learn that while I was being prepped for pacemaker implant surgery, my already critically weakened electrical cardio-impulses were rapidly deteriorating, and the surgeons kept me alive while they inserted the pacemaker and the pacemaker started to do what pacemakers do... keep people alive.
The events in my life this past week, as well as watching Peter Scheibner's heart felt video, have given me pause to stop and consider, among other things, the miracles in my life.
The Hebrews have no equivalent word for "coincidence." Life does not happen randomly, and people and situations in our lives are not random. There are reasons, and they are God's reasons.
I recalled again a poster my daughter used to have in her room when she was a teenager. The poster was of a young girl skiing down the moguls, with skis, feet, polls, and hands in every possible direction, and a look of abject terror on the young girl's face. Across the top of the poster it said, "I DON'T BELIEVE IN MIRACLES" and across the bottom it said, "I DEPEND ON MIRACLES."
And so do we all depend on God's miracles, whether or not we realize or want to admit it.
I also thought of what I believe to be one of the most profound lines I've ever heard in any movie... "Out of Africa," when Streep's character, Baroness Karen Blixen, said, "God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road." Perhaps that's God's way of inviting us to trust in Him in all things.
Another thing that came to mind was something I learned many years ago from a Dr. Epstein who is an extraordinarily gifted pediatric surgeon. Dr. Epstein cares for, and operates on only those children with catastrophic medical problems that other pediatric surgeons won't touch. When asked how he dealt with caring for and operating on these innocent little children who have the worst of the worst medical problems... and did he ever ask "why." Dr. Epstein said, "Yes. I used to ask why. And then I realized that it was okay to ask why as long as you don't demand an answer." Dr. Epstein went on to say that he was very aware that we may never get some answers as long as we're in this life, but we just need to accept that, and do what we're called to do.
Miracles abound all around us. Miracles don't have to be feeding thousands from a few baskets of loaves and fishes, or turning water into wine, or the many miracles described in the Bible.
Miracles are often the everyday things that happen in our lives, that put us precisely where we need to be, and exactly when we need to be there. Miracles are often the people in our lives who comfort us, and enable us to keep going forward without being too discouraged. Miracles are those who keep us in their prayers, without being asked. But the greatest of miracles is that God send His only son to die for us and our sins.
We are living in times that probably, to a person, we never thought we'd experience. We are surrounded by evil and we are being called to prayer and fighting back against the evil.
Peter Scheibner's "Life Objectives" gave me more to think and pray about. Will God say to me, "Well done, my good and faithful servant?"
Anne from PA
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