The miracles in the miles

Have you ever wondered what a miracle looks like?  I think generally we see it as those things that in a single instance defy the laws of the natural world.  Some people have claimed miraculous encounters in life threatening situations, while there are others who have been miraculously healed from a disease that riddled their body just a day before.  Then there are still others who define it as the miracle of birth a child divinely created inside the body of its mother, formed beautifully and perfectly.  I am not discrediting the miracle of any of these things, I mean we have three children that medically speaking probably should not be here.  My own mother in law saved the life of our son, and what should have been a life altering accident for him and is for most children, left him unscathed.  I have been thinking over the last many months and weeks and I have found myself wondering are those the only miracles?  I think we assume a miracle is something that is supposed to happen in an instant, and magically makes an imperfect situation perfect, but I have to ask is that really all there is to it?  In society today we used the word flippantly for situations that turn out the way we want them to, or the way we deem they should go, but is that really what a miracle, a truly miraculous work of God is?  I am beginning to think we are missing the boat terribly on this miracle thing.  Miriam Webster defines a miracle as 1 : an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs 2 : an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment.  If you read that closely it talks about extraordinary, outstanding, unusual, events, things or accomplishments.  It did not give us a time frame for this, or clarify how it’s supposed to happen.  I have always believed that even in the worst of circumstances that God is always good, always sovereign, and a God of miracles.  Now with that being said I was originally introduced to these principles by watching my own mother, who dealt with extreme loss and tragedy over the course of a life time and still believed these very truths.  Now believing these things has not stopped the countless conversations in my head about why some people get the miracles and others don’t, and for now I do not have a good answer for that.  What I do think though, not to sound too cliché, is that we are looking so hard for the perfect miracle that magically happens and makes everything ok that we are missing some truly miraculous situations right in front of us.  All that being said I know many of you have been witness to, or seen via video from Mark of our sweet Brylee walking.  If you haven’t I will post it at the end.  I can not really explain what it is like to have had her immobile for close to two years and then see her pop her head around the corner in the kitchen trolling for food.  It is almost too big a thing for me to really wrap my head around most days.  When we found out about Brylee's stroke almost two years ago, we were given so many prayers thoughts and well wishes, and so many sayings of, “God can do a miracle and fix this.”   Now I believe with everything that is in me that God can do it.  I have seen too many times over the years where death and tragedy have been defied and the only explanation is a divine intervention, but the reality is in our case He didn’t fix it.  He didn’t go back and magically erase the damage that her brain suffered before she ever entered our world.  So does that mean we didn’t get the miracle?  I have been truly examining this week what a miracle really is, because if it is in fact an overnight transformation, healing the sick, fixing the broken, or bringing life back from death then we missed it.  I have since come to the conclusion though that we are missing the slow miracle.  The one that comes like a slow burning candle where you never really see when the wax burns away, you just look up all of the sudden one day and it has reached its end.  The miracle especially this kind I find does not usually end in things looking perfectly how we planned them to, usually at the end they might still be a little scathed and a little broken.  But broken and scathed, they are miracles none the less, and that is in fact what I believe Brylee's life to be.  She is a slow burning miracle.  Her little body is far from what a human definition of perfect is.  She is not fixed, her struggles have not disappeared.  They are still there everyday.  Over the last two years  everyone collectively has loved her, prayed for her, fought for her, and with her.  And so here we are two years later and she has no words that she speaks although she does find ways to communicate with us, she walks with a limp and her leg in a contorted fashion,  she can not use her left hand the way it is supposed to work, and she still has to be on a feeding tube because even though she eats she can not drink enough.  Any guy off the street looking at that would be most likely exhibiting some form of pity if I showed them that list, but ya’ll, did you read what it said?  Go back and look closely.  She can communicate!  She can walk! She can use her hand!  She is eating!  Do you see it, amongst all that imperfection, do you see the miracles?  It has been two years of fighting, praying, and tears.  None of this has happened over night, it has been a painstaking, arduous, and exhausting process, but I can say with great confidence at the end of it all that I a staring in the face of a miracle.  It’s there, through all the dirt, muck, and mud it’s there and no one can take it away from us.  I believe even more strongly than I ever have, that there are so many times God reveals himself through the hands of other people.  God used our circumstances to prepare us for this, our doctors to equip us for this, and our friends, family, and therapists to get us to where we are now, and even though everyone of those people are human it does not remove the divinity from it.  So here is my challenge for everyone reading this.  Look at where the Lord has brought you.  No the road is never pretty, it’s usually dusty, dirty, filled with pot holes, bad drivers, and speeding tickets.  You will have bad days, and sometimes weeks, and months, but instead of fighting for perfection, strive for the best the Lord has equipped you with.  It may not look the way you expect it to in the end but the miracle of a life fought for, and lived to the fullest whether that life is for a few hours or extends beyond 100 years is where the miracles truly lie.