Do You Believe in Miracles?
Miracles happen all around us every day. Sometimes we just need to pay a little closer attention to detail. They exist so that we can wonder at the how and the why and magnify our creator. The colors of the leaves in the changing seasons, the sky fluctuating shades at the ever changing weather. The miracle of a new flower after the storm…
New growth after the storm. That is a miracle in and of itself. How can something good possibly come from the chaos of a storm? I never fully tried to understand what a miracle is until I experienced the most earth-shattering storm in my life. It’s funny how we take miracles for granted or, we don’t even think about them in our everyday lives. That is, until the very fiber of our being is shook so violently, we are skeptical of any future healing. So, what is a miracle? A miracle is described as an “effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause. such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God. a wonder; marvel.”
It’s easy to believe in miracles and the goodness of God when everything in life is good. But it’s when you walk through such a monumental flame that your faith and your belief in God is truly tested. I’m talking about a kind of testing the devil uses to steel your thunder, ambition, hope, future, and your faith. He uses disappointment above all to get us right where he wants us. Vulnerable. So vulnerable that we even question the very existence of God. Yes, to even question God’s existence. How could it be possible to question our God, our Savior, the Creator of the Universe? This is where the Devil seeps in to try and literally destroy our testimony. This is such a dangerous place to find ourselves. Sadly, it’s the very place Satan desires us to be. To see us grappling in the ruins of life. Drenched in sweat and dirt, trying to make sense of the horrific scene that just played out in our life. This is a scene in my life which I never even saw coming. Life was beautiful, and it was going exactly the way it was supposed to be going. Why would I even think this type of tragedy would even happen? Especially when you are living such a faithful and God honoring life! Faithful in obeying His commands the best we can, faithful in serving Him, and faithful tithers just like any Christian is supposed to be. Tithing comes with a promise. A promise which I felt was shattered the moment my life turned upside down. A promise which I didn’t know if I could trust anymore, let alone trust the one who made the promise in the first place. God. How could He allow something like this to even happen? To us? To me? How could my God abandon me? Where was my miracle?
The second that the doctor told me that “Stephen didn’t make it,” devastated me beyond words. Even though I had just been given the kind of news that no one on earth would ever want to hear I was NOT ready to accept it. I was convinced that God was not done and that something big was still in store for me and for Stephen together. So, in my mind there was no way that this was going to be the outcome. Where was my miracle?
My entire earthly identity has been altered. I suddenly found myself lost in who I was, I was a wife to an amazing husband one second and widowed the very next. I say that I lost my earthly identity because I know who I am in Christ and nothing will ever change that. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I am a child of the King and nothing that happens on earth will ever change that. Even in the questions of confusion in the agonizing pain. I did not receive my miracle. You may be asking how I can even see a miracle woven within my story of such grave disappointment.
Life may not be playing out the way that I expected it to, but nothing that happened took God by surprise. There is a plan and a purpose far beyond what my little earthly mind can fathom. If He told me what it was, I wouldn’t be able to understand the vastness of His plan.
I do, however, understand a part of His grand plan. We all serve a great purpose on this earth. We each have our own “assignments.” These assignments are for us and us alone to fulfill. No one else can do it for us. That purpose is to bring as many people to Christ that we possibly can before leaving this earth. What an extraordinary assignment!
What does all this have to do with believing in miracles? For me personally, that miracle came when I realized that God NEVER left me, nor forsook me. Even when I was in my darkest moments and I felt so utterly alone and abandoned by Him. He was there with my – crying with me, carrying me, and wiping away my tears - He has always protected me, He provides for me, and has helped me to truly understand the magnitude of His great and unwavering love for me.
I want you to know that God is a God of miracles and weather or not we understand the adversity we are facing in this life; God’s purpose will ALWAYS prevail. While my love for Stephen will never fade, it was a chapter in my book and there is more for my life beyond the grief. Miracles are not always punctuation marks, but they are worth celebrating. The miracle is in the revelation of your journey. In the new growth after the storm.
By Jill Swillum posted on May 14, 2020