THE MIRACLE OF MIRACLES

If you have been reading my recent blogs then you know that my brother went into the hospital on April 18 for drastic, extensive surgery to remove adenoblastoma.  And you also know that instead of a 10 hour surgery, and lengthy hospital recovery, he was out of the hospital by noon on the same day.  The blastoma the surgeons expected to find was gone!  What a miracle!

He and I have had many conversations since, expressing our joy and gratitude to God, but also thinking a lot about miracles.  The truth is we don’t see a lot of this kind of miraculous physical healing today.  All of us can think of people we know who are in desperate need of healing, and yet, most will probably not be healed.  

However, true and miraculous and awesome miracles do happen every single day, miracles far more wonderful.  

In the blog, “Explaining the Unexplainable”, I sited the account of the man who was born blind, whom Jesus healed, from John’s gospel, chapter 9.  There is more to that account.

When the man who was born blind expressed his incredulity with the religious leaders refusal to accept that the One who healed him MUST have been sent by God, they threw him out of the synagogue.

Then John tells the rest of the story, beginning in verse 35:

Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man (a title Jesus used of Himself.  It refers to his humanity but the way He used it was also a claim to divinity.)?”

“Who is he, sir?” the man asked.  “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”

Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

Do you know what that greater miracle is?  It’s the miracle Jesus does in a heart to bring the spiritually dead to life, to give the spiritually blind their sight.  These religious leaders THOUGHT they had spiritual sight, yet they refused to recognize Jesus as the Messiah for which they had been waiting.  In doing so, they proved themselves to be blind.

On the other hand, the man who had been physically blind recognized Jesus for who He was because He had been given spiritual (as well as physical) sight!  We can see the fruit of this change in the fact that the formerly blind man called Jesus Lord, he expressed his faith, (I believe) and immediately worshiped Jesus.

I love that in John's account, when Jesus heard the man had been thrown out of the synagogue, HE went out to find him!  All day, every day, all year long, Jesus is at work seeking sinful and undeserving men, women, and children and drawing them to Himself. He's doing so right now as you read this blog.

We don’t deserve that kind of love and forgiveness, but the miracle is that He continually offers it.  And when it is received, He miraculously transforms those who are spiritually dead and they become alive in Christ, eternally.  He performs the work of removing their spiritual blinders, so that, for the first time EVER, they truly “see” – spiritual truth, the evidence of God and His work all around us, the reality of heaven - as they have never seen before.  

The work Jesus does in us spiritually – by His grace, through faith – is the true miracle of miracles. 

RESTORING THE YEARS THE LOCUST HAVE EATEN

Thirty-eight years ago yesterday, I gave birth to my daughter Amy.  When we were first married, at the age of 23, neither Jim nor I thought we wanted children.  But by the time we had been married seven years, I had changed my mind.  It was a long time before I was able to get pregnant, but then came that glorious day when I was.  It was an awesome pregnancy and I was so excited at the prospect of being a mom.
 

I remember the night after Amy’s birth, sitting on my hospital bed, staring into the eyes of this little blond, fuzzy headed baby, my heart filling with gratitude for God’s goodness to me.  Later at home, when I was rocking her to sleep or feeding her, the joy of this great gift from God just could not be contained.

Amy was a delightful baby and an easy child to raise.  However, I know she would agree with me that her teen years were very hard on our family.  I’ve come to appreciate her “marching to the beat of a different drummer” personality now, but back then, I had no idea how to parent her.  

She loved to take risks.  Even at the tender age of two or so, she’d fearlessly climb to the top of the highest monkey bars, or stairs, without a sense of the danger.  As an adult, her risk taking has served her well, giving her the courage and determination to apply for a job she was sure she could do, though she didn’t have the required degree to qualify.  And she GOT the job too!  And most recently she moved across country, all on her own, to settle in Phoenix.

In addition to that quality, she is outgoing, gregarious and the life of any party.  Her personality is very different from the other three of us who are decidedly introverted.  We’d rather skip the party altogether.  While we are introverted and sedentary, she loves being with people and is always on the go.  

While we are content with reading and other quiet pursuits, she has an interest level that is just off the charts.  At different times in her life she has hiked, drawn, and made her own cards.  As an adult, she’s recently purchased her own power tools so she can make furniture, and built a chicken coop in her back yard for raising her own chickens.  She’s done demo on various apartments and then installed appliances and kitchen cabinets.  Whatever of her various interests I can remember, it doesn’t do justice to all the things she’s done that I can’t remember.

Given the differences between her personality and ours, maybe it’s not surprising that we would butt heads when she reached her teens.  I don’t need to give details, but suffice it to say that those years were terrible – scary, discouraging, angry, depressing and disappointing years.  Our mother/daughter relationship was strained and hard.  I wasn’t sure we’d ever get over it.

Amy moved out at 18 and started a life of her own.  It wasn’t easy for her, but her risk taking personality and her fierce independence carried her through – and she not only made it – she succeeded and thrived.  And somehow, so did our relationship.

This week Amy found herself in the hospital in Phoenix with pneumonia.  Since we were in New York City for what was to be a life threatening surgery for my brother, we flew our younger daughter Becky out to be with Amy for the weekend.  When Becky had to go back home to work, Jim and I were able to fly out to be with her.  

On the way out I was a little apprehensive.  I wondered whether, once Amy began to feel better, her independent personality would make it hard for her to accept my help as she recovered.  That didn’t happen.

She was obviously sick.  She was suffering from pain in her back and chest and discomfort from a chest tube they inserted before we arrived.  She wanted someone to stay with her at night to provide comfort, so Jim and I took turns at that (he more than me!).  

On the afternoon of the day when she was finally able to go home, I found her vacuuming some area rugs out on her porch and I did what I typically don’t do with her.  I laid down the law.  I said, “If you’re not going to let me help you, I’m going home.  That’s what I’m here for.”  Amazingly, she listened to me!  And she did let me help.  It was wonderful.  I cleaned her house and she let us chauffer her around to run errands and drive her back and forth to work for a few hours.

Yesterday morning, the morning of her 38^th birthday, we prepared to leave.  It was a tearful goodbye, leaving us both sad and longing for more of one another.

On the way home, I began to think of a Bible verse someone taught on years ago.  It’s from the Old Testament prophet Joel.  Joel was prophet to the nation of Judah, warning them of impending judgment because of their sins and urging them to turn back to the Lord.  He speaks of an invasion of locusts – very likely a real invasion – but likens it to the devastation the Lord will bring on the land if Judah does not repent.  Then, in speaking of a future time of repentance when the Lord will restore her prosperity, Joel says this, in chapter 2, verse 25:

He will restore to you the years the locust have eaten.

 All I can think of this morning as we sit at the airport waiting is that the Lord has done this for Amy and me.  These new years with Amy are the fulfillment of that verse.  All those damaging, difficult, barren years have been restored and filled with love and joy as we relate to one another in a new way.  

I have seen it with my own eyes.  The Lord has done great things. 

POST NON-SURGERY

The afternoon of the day of my brother’s non-surgery, we bought tickets to return to Florida the next day.  By evening, all of his sons, his wife, and Jim and I were sitting in a restaurant having a dinner we never expected to be having and I was rejoicing over the great thing the Lord had done, and then we got the phone call.  Our daughter Amy, instead of leaving the hospital, would now have to have a chest tube inserted to remove fluid in her lung.  So, we canceled our plans to go home and booked a flight to Arizona.  I was so grateful that I could comfortably leave my brother and be there for my daughter.

I was on SUCH a spiritual high on that travel day, so in awe of what the Lord had done, that I did a few things not totally comfortable for me.  While waiting for my husband, who had made a trip to the rest room, I sat alone at a table when a homeless man came up to me asking for food.  When Jim came back I went to find him and bought him a meal.  Before we parted, I told him about Jesus, and prayed with him.

Then a lovely African American woman named India sat beside us.  She was returning to Florida to visit her son who was in the hospital.  She was not a religious woman, but she allowed me to hold her hand and pray with her for her son.

We spent the rest of this week with Amy in the hospital while the doctors treated her pneumonia and addressed the stubborn fluid in her lung.  Surgery was discussed but never happened, thank the Lord.

While there, I had a wonderful opportunity to share what Jesus had done in my brother’s body with another couple and they shared with me their own story of miraculous healing.

Since then, I’m feeling pretty tired, emotionally and physically.  I’m anxious to get back home to contemplate and wrap my mind around what the Lord has been up to these last two weeks.  I’ve often thought this week that I wished I could SEE the supernatural events God is doing around us and in lives.  I may have to wait for heaven to finally see it, but I can believe now, by faith, that it’s awesome!