Miracles

The 9th/10th of July always makes me pensive...Seven years ago tonight, I was teetering perilously on the brink between life and death. I had just undergone emergency surgery to attempt to repair the gastric leak that threatened my existence. While I was actually mercifully out of consciousness for this battle, many of the people who read this were certainly warriors on my behalf. At the time, no one on earth knew what the outcome would be, but so many people prayed unceasingly for me that night and over the next several months.

It was a terrible time, and certainly it was a path I would never have chosen. However, I have seen that God can use for good what seems at first to be senseless or evil. Although I'd never wish such an experience on anyone, I do wish everyone had the same opportunity I did to witness the outpouring of love and support that I did at that time. I certainly learned more about my faith during that time than any other, and the lessons I learned are ones I've returned to many times since. Indeed, God tells us, "I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name." (Isaiah 45:3). I'm so thankful to have received a miracle.

I wonder if, when we get to Heaven, that there will be a roadmap or a timeline that God will show us so that we're able to see how He used what seemed to be struggles or roadblocks or even tragedies in our lives for His greater purpose or so that we can understand the way in which miracles are delivered. I suspect so, because some things just don't make sense here on Earth. Why do some people who, by the estimation of most, are essentially wastes of cells and oxygen, seem to be cats with many more than nine lives, while innocent children, young mothers, or pillars of faith and good deeds endure such gross suffering? One of my favorite patients at Casa Colina, which has as its motto "where miracles continue", had her claimed Bible verse on a sign on her walker:
“Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us." (Romans 8:17-18).
One day in group, one of my frontal-lobe-injured patients asked her in a jeer how she could believe in God when there were so many tragic stories around them (he didn't phrase it quite so politely). She said, "How can you see so many miracles here and not believe in God? And these are just the miracles we get to see...there are so many more we don't get to witness...Besides, if you didn't have God, how could you stand it?"

This evening, I learned terrible news of a girl I grew up with who battled and was believed to have beaten cancer. She learned today that its' evil has become exponentially more ferocious. Next week, she will be undergoing a desperate surgery likely to be debilitating (in the best-case scenario) or fatal (in the worst-case scenario). The suffering she and her family have endured through the last year and a half of her battle are mind-staggering, but it is simply unthinkable that she has just been given this most terrible of news about her prognosis. I hope everyone will join me in praying for a radical miracle for Laura.