Interesting phenomena, we pray for a miracle, then once received we chalk it up to “well that would have happened anyway”. Really? How can we know for sure one way or the other? Therein lies the root of our doubt of the miraculous.

Some insist to prove miraculous the result must be in direct opposition of the laws of nature. Others, any happenstance that works out in their favor after prayer is a miracle. And yes, if you are wondering I do, at times, play both sides of this fence. Don’t we all?

Those who insist on the miraculous involving the impossible breaking of natural laws, appear to be seeking justification for their disbelief. After all, how can the maker of laws break them and expect their keeping. Others not wholly in this camp may simply be looking for irrefutable evidence before taking the risk of faith.

The true skeptics in the group are likely to be disappointed with any explanation why this cannot be the defining characteristic of the miraculous. Nothing I can say here will convince them otherwise. For them moving on to the next ‘item of interest’ may be the best use of their time.

Now back to the rest of us. We may still have on foot in the camp of iron clad proof or endless doubt. But we at least desire a degree of faith in miracles, and by default in the maker of miracles, God.

What brought up this line of thought was the return of a dear friend from his second mission trip to a country were years earlier in life he served our country in the military. We stood in the airport hugging each. He said he was glad to see me (no doubt referring to my heart attack).  When I realized neither of us should, by all rights, even be in that space and time. One a cancer survivor who was told two years earlier he would never make his first trip here returning from his second in as many years. The other surviving a heart attack less than three weeks earlier.

Coincidence or miraculous? I side with the miraculous, after all I am one. Yes, modern medicine has made great, even dare I say miraculous, advances in the treatment of medical conditions. However, many do not survive either pancreatic cancer or heart attacks.

Thinking of the series of events (coincidences for the doubters among us) that took place in my case it is nothing less than miraculous. That night as I sat on the edge of the bed trying to decide whether to wake my wife to tell her I was having a heart attack when my father’s words came back to me: “the only reason people die of a heart attack is they don’t get to the hospital soon enough”. The years my father trained to be a paramedic only for him to say that to me so many years ago. The hospital being less than 10 minutes from my house. My wife changing careers years earlier to become a nurse and knowing I should chew an aspirin. My marrying her in the first place (perhaps I should more rightly say in her marrying me). The advances in modern medicine in the treatment of heart attacks. These along with countless others all conspired that night three weeks ago to save my life. If that is not miraculous I don’t know what is.

While none of these singular events defied the laws of nature, together they formed what has become my miracle. We have become so used to the endless combination of seemingly unrelated events in our lives conspiring to form the miracles of our existence. I am not alone in the miraculous. Take a moment now to look back and see the amazing grace of the miracle of “unrelated” events in your own life that have brought you “safe thus far”, and know His “Grace will lead us home.”