Where’s that Miracle?

I taught college composition for quite a few years.  Content develop is the key to success. When developing an argument, I would tell students, “You need three reasons for why you believe anything.  One does not show a pattern. Neither does two.  However, three shows you’ve given the matter sincere consideration.”

A few weeks later, a non-traditional student came in boasting, “I used your “3-reasons” for belief argument and stopped some of my friends from going to church.”

What have I unleashed, I asked myself.  Then I thought, “Oh! No!  What if he asks me?”

So I started to think of three reasons.  I fell into a trap on my first go-round, trying to be theological.  persuading someone to believe through Scripture alone does not work – especially with people who do not know God – and when I say know I mean someone who reads His words and seeks Him out in a “As-the-deer-panteth-for-water-so-my-heart-panteth-for You” kind of seek. 

It took me a week.  After all, I was a college instructor – I needed to sound wise. Then the truth just smacked me in the face. It was so simple.  The Three Reasons I believe? He held my son in the palm of His hand on the day he was born, protecting him for 16 minutes until he was born healthy and whole.  Another son couldn’t hear in one ear and He opened his ears.  Another son had stomach pain for 6 years.  Specialists and doctors kept blowing us off.  One day, I hit the floor and cried out to God.  Two days later, another mom gave me the name of a doctor who decided to scope him, found the problem, and prescribed the solution. Big miracles and little miracles – that’s why I believe. Everytime I’ve cried out, God has answered.  Maybe not in the way I thought, but He answered.

Before Christmas, we all started praying for a miracle – “an extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers; such an effect or event manifesting or considered a work of God.”

You can imagine the struggle in our household now.  The little guys – they believe in miracles, but somehow because a miracle didn’t happen last week did not shake their belief.  They are comforted that their Papaw is in heaven.

My great-niece said it all at the visitation, “Mama – you said Papaw’s in heaven.  He can’t be in heaven.  He’s right there.”

However, there’s struggling going on – probably not just with my older guys – but there’s struggling going on. 

One of my sons said today, “The minister stood there and said, ‘A miracle’s going to happen.’ Well, it didn’t. Papaw died.  I don’t know if I believe in miracles.  I prayed, but nothing happened.” His heart is broken and his faith is shaken.

Do you ever have thoughts that swirl around your mind? They swirl but do not really have a place to settle?  And you wonder if those thoughts should ever see the light of day?

And a moment comes where that thought that had been swirling, formed clearly and landed in your heart instead of your mouth?

That’s what happened when my son finished talking and said he was going to take a long bath.

I grabbed one of my thank you cards, wrote the following note, and slid it under the bathroom door. And I believe it with all my heart:

“Did you ever think that the true miracle is the lives changed through Papaw’s death.

Nobody wanted Jesus to die, but how His death changed lives!

If we consider what Papaw was to this family, I can only think that people are looking at themselves and asking, ‘Am I living how Papaw wanted.’

Why now?  Not in 10 years?  Maybe because someone needed that change now – and Papaw is the kind of man who would do that for those he loves.”

Maybe God whispered that to Papaw! I believe when the minister prayed for a miracle, God heard him.  It just wasn’t the miracle we were looking for. However, I believe it was the miracle Papaw would have wanted – after all, he was always a man who did for others first.