Miracles happen every day. I am not talking about those big, obvious life-changing miracles; like the birth of a child or a surprising and unexpected recovery from a severe illness. I am referring to those small, sometimes quiet and often very spectacular miracles that are happening all around us….if only we look hard enough.
Have you ever thought about how really wonderful it would be if a long-lost friend happened to call? And then they did? Have you ever been running late for a meeting and wished and hoped that the meeting would be cancelled? And then it was? Have you ever been lost in a strange city and then, suddenly, right in front of you, your destination suddenly appears? Was it luck? Was it just a coincidence? Would that have happened anyway, just by chance? Or is it something more? Does a larger presence actually help and assist us when we need Him most? Some may say “no” I choose to believe that miracles happen every day, we are just often too busy to notice them on a regular basis.
We have all had that feeling that something beyond our understanding is happening. Many of us get that feeling after the death of a loved one or a cherished pet. We will be sitting alone, maybe just waking from a difficult sleep and there in the corner of our eye we see what we think is a vision or a passing glimpse of that very loved individual. That vision is almost always reassuring, as if the departed one is trying to tell us that things are fine and that they are truly in a better place doing very nicely, my friend. Our friends and relatives will try to reassure us, but we know they are thinking that the real answer is that we are just grieving and seeing things that just are not there. Yet, we know what we saw. Or at least we think we do. I prefer to think of these visions as another little miracle that happen every day.
Have you ever had an experience where you decided, on a whim, to not take your usual route to work and then discover later that there was a terrible accident on your usual path to the office? Have you not often said,”That could have been me?” Again, another little miracle that happens every day. What caused me to alter my route? Why did I decide to go another way?
Have you ever had a terrible experience, the loss of a job, an unexpected illness or mishap? Perhaps it was an event where you caught yourself saying “How could this happen to me?” I am a good person, doing good things, helping people, paying my taxes, taking care of my family, and now this happens?” I think we have all been down that road many times. How often, however, have we also later said that without that setback, that job loss, that misfortune, we would not be where we are today? Another miracle, that often goes unnoticed. Serendipity, perhaps? Another miracle that happens all of the time?
Many miracles happen all around us and we are frequently just too busy to notice them. I walk, almost every day, very early in the morning. Depending on the season, many of these walks take place in complete darkness. There is rarely a sound, only an occasional passerby or that random creature seeking food, shelter or, perhaps, sleep. It is mostly a quiet and very tranquil time of day and one that I recommend to anyone seeking time for thought, reflection and insight. The sky is very often clear, the stars and planets clearly visible, while the moon that constant interloper, loving to play his game of hide and seek. It is in those special times that I truly can hear and see more sharply than when the noise and clutter of the day force their way into my life. I observe events and hear things that I know are present when the day is in full bloom, those events are just easier to ignore when people and the business of life get in the way.
In that quiet time of my walk I sometimes hear the flutter of wings on some distant branch. I can smell the faint and distant aroma of people rising and preparing their morning meal. I see glorious streaks of light on occasion;the waning evidence of some planetary rock discovering the physics of our earthly atmosphere and protector, leaving scant evidence of its fitful journey to our planet in streaks of many hues. I can peek at tiny eyes gazing at me from the protection and shelter of a leafy bush or billowing tree and every once in a while, the distant wail of a lonely locomotive rushing all too hard to be somewhere else. Miracles that are happening all around me, but I am often just too busy to notice.
Over the course of my sixty-plus years on this planet earth, I have only just recently come to understand that God is truly all around me, each and every day. He is an active and constantly reassuring presence in the course of my life. He guides me where I need to go, nudging me around those detours I often take, all the while trying to keep me on the path that He knows is the proper one for me. I believe that He places these markers in the road, these every day miracles for me to see and hopefully, understand. He wants me to know that He is there, that He has not forgotten me, has not left me alone.
For it is often in the most troubling days of our lives, that we finally take note and look all around us at those miracles that happen each and every day. Those guideposts, those markers, those miracles; they are placed there for each one of us. We simply have to take the time to slow down and notice them. And when we do, the true miracle of it all is that we will finally see the world for what it truly is. We will understand our place in it and where we really must go. Miracles are happening all of the time. We simply must first seek and then we will find them.