by Amy Newmark
Don began eating but I could hardly move my arms to begin my meal. “I was not even thinking about him today,” I related. My husband said something like, “Hmm.”
“Are you doubting me?” I asked.
“Hon, I have no idea what just occurred, but if you think you saw him . . . .” he began. I wiped my tears and softly said, “It happened. I know it happened. I wish it had not been so brief!”
This was my miracle. After our son died, I prayed that God would bless me with a dream or a vision of him, just to know he was fine and in His care. I had experienced a couple of dreams where I felt my son was there. The dreams left me feeling warm and comforted and truly at peace when I awoke.
This was different. I always had the feeling in the first few years after his death that if I did see him I would probably faint. My faith was not that strong and I was deep in the throes of grieving. I wanted to see a vision of him but at the same time I was afraid.
It happened when I was ready to accept it. God allowed me to see my son, perhaps one last time! I do not believe he is a “ghost” that haunts my home, as some people might surmise. No. He is in a wonderful, peaceful, loving place and his spirit can come and go as God wills. That is what I believe, and I am thankful God allowed me one glimpse of my son in spirit form! He just had to pop in and check on his cat, and showed me by his smile that he is very happy indeed!
It took some time to convince my husband that I’d had a vision of our son, and he still is not sure why it happened for me. He does, however, know that I vehemently believe the miracle occurred.
I thank God daily for the two-second miracle that left me with such peace.
~Beverly F. Walker
The Textbook
Prayer is the medium of miracles; in whatever way works for you, pray right now.
~Marianne Williamson
“Too much textbook left at the end of the money!” I muttered to myself in the college bookstore. I had bartered for used textbooks for some classes and had purchased as many others as I could afford but there was nothing left for my Urban Sociology textbook. I needed to buy it new because it had been revised, but even if I had been able to use the old version there were no used copies available.
When I got home that evening I shared my dilemma with my grandmother.
“Honey, what are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’ll make do the best I can,” I told her. “Maybe someone in the class will allow me to borrow a book to read the pages assigned each week. I’ll take good notes in class and hopefully I can pass the course without a textbook.”
Grandma sighed and said, “You know if I had any extra money, I would give it to you.” She paused to kiss the top of my head, and I knew in just a few minutes she’d be down on her knees in the bedroom taking my concern to the Lord.
On Saturday morning Grandma and I went to the grocery store downtown. As we parked across the road from the market, she said, “Honey, let’s run into this secondhand clothing store for a minute. You need an extra white blouse to take with you. Maybe we can find one in there that I can fix up for you.”
While she browsed through clothing, I wandered to the side of the shop where they kept books, furnishings, and odds and ends. As I searched among the books, I spied a familiar book. Moving closer, I could not believe my eyes. It was a copy of the Urban Sociology book I needed for my class! It was the edition being replaced, the book used the previous year, but it looked the same on the outside. Since I didn’t have the $75 for the new edition, perhaps I could learn part of the material from the old edition.
“How much is this book?” I asked the clerk.
“Oh, honey, we can’t sell old textbooks around here. Everyone wants novels like mysteries and romances, not educational stuff. I’ll let you have it for a quarter and I’m glad to get rid of it!”
About that time, Grandma came over to show me two good white blouses she had found and I showed her the book. She beamed and said, “God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform,” and we went to the cash register to pay.
There was an additional surprise for me when I went to the first day of my Urban Sociology class. The professor held up a copy of the textbook and said, “Now class, take note of the text we are using. In the bookstore you will find the new edition. In case you have not yet purchased your textbook, my advice to you is to seek out a student from last semester and offer him a fair price for his book. I have examined the new text and I totally disagree with the revisions. I will be teaching this class using last year’s edition.”
I hugged my twenty-five-cent textbook to my chest and whispered my thanks. “Thank You, Lord! Thank you, Grandma!”
~Helen Wilder
Soda Miracles
A prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward.
~Phillips Brooks
One beautiful day in Northwest Arkansas, while visiting the sixty-seven-foot-tall Christ of the Ozarks statue in Eureka Springs, my then-thirteen-year-old daughter asked for a Sprite. Looking at her with barely veiled surprise, I reminded her that we were deep in the Ozark forest, on top of Magnetic Mountain, and that mountain forests did not provide sodas for teenagers. Besides, I could really use a restroom, which also were not naturally occurring in forests, so soda was not high on my list of priorities.
This explanation was not convincing to my dear daughter, who promptly provided a solution. “I’m going to pray for one.”
“Sweetheart, one can not pray for soda,” I explained.
“Yes you can,” she continued, defiantly. “The Bible says to pray for EVERYTHING.”
“While this is certainly true, I don’t believe God had soda in mind when He handed down that little tip,” I reasoned.
“Well, I’m going to pray for it anyway,” was her unwavering response.
I told her to go ahead and do so if it made her feel better, but not to be too disappointed if it didn’t happen. I did ask her to pray for a restroom while she was at it, and we headed toward the car to drive home.
As we neared the parking lot, I noticed a small building situated not far behind the car. As we got closer, I realized that it was a restroom! How had I not noticed that before? Well, I guess it wasn’t really that bizarre. After all, we were in what was probably a popular local attraction. Regardless of the reason, the sight was welcome!
“Well, ask and you shall receive!” I exclaimed. I asked if my daughter needed to use the restroom before going. She didn’t. Tucking her safely in the car, my husband and I headed to the newly discovered restrooms, hopeful that they would be unlocked even though it was the off-season.
“Do you think I handled that okay?” I asked my husband, feeling uncertain about the message I was sending by discouraging prayer, even if it was just for soda.
“It might be confusing for her. After all, you tell her to pray for everything, then when she wants to pray for, literally, everything, you make her feel silly for doing it,” he admonished.
“I didn’t say it was silly!” I defended. “Just that it wasn’t what the verse meant! Doesn’t it seem kind of, I don’t know . . . blasphemous I guess? Praying for something as trivial as soda?”
“Not really. The Bible does say ‘everything.’ Who are we to put limits on that?” was his wise reply.
No sooner did he finish his sentence than we reached the tiny structure that housed the restrooms. And right next to the restroom entrance what should we find but a soda machine? We looked at each other in surprise and moved toward the machine to see if it was even on. It was.
“I don’t have any change. Do you?” I questioned.
“All I have is fifty cents,” he answered.
“It’s a dollar. We don’t have enough. That’s a shame, since that would have been a mini-miracle to her,” I said, disappointed.
“Let’s put the fifty cents in anyway,” he said.
“What would be the point of that?” I asked.
“She prayed for soda in the middle
of the wilderness. Two minutes later we found a soda machine, in the middle of the wilderness. It’s worth a try,” he explained.
“I guess,” I said skeptically.
He plopped in the two quarters, and we instantly heard that reassuring click that signifies the acceptance of full payment.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. There was already fifty cents in there?” I asked.
And then I did something incredibly selfish. I hit the Coke button even though she wanted Sprite. After all, I reasoned to myself, she’ll still be getting soda. Just like she asked for.
When they say that God works in mysterious ways, we all nod our head in agreement. But do we really stop to consider what that means? Not only does He work in mysterious ways, He also manages to use one situation for multiple benefits. The cherry on top is that He can use seemingly inconsequential moments and seemingly minor events to create profound changes within us. This was the day I realized these facts in a new and enduring way. Why such a transformation in foundational thought? Because when I hit the button for Coke, after the machine taking fifty percent payment as full payment, a Sprite dropped into the retrieval tray.
We wordlessly stared at it. I was astounded by the lemon-lime packaging before us, but I think my husband was a bit more astounded by the fact that I had hit the Coke button after what had happened up until that point.
He looked at me. “I think you owe her an apology.”
I can’t describe the feeling of sorrow and shame I felt in that moment, as humility born of self-realization washed over me. In the midst of my daughter’s miracle I had tried to put myself first. What a terrible thing for an otherwise caring mother to do. I was sincerely and completely sorry, and ready to offer my deepest apologies to my faithful little girl. I turned toward the car, prepared to deliver her liquid miracle to her before even heading to the restroom that I increasingly needed to use. Two quarters spit out of the machine.
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I turned to my husband, a sense of awe filling me. He looked at me, retrieved the quarters, and, without another word, put them in the machine. I reached over and hit the very same button I had hit only moments before. A Coke dropped out.
I handed him the Coke and, Sprite in hand, walked to the car, opened the door, kissed my daughter, and handed her the Sprite.
“Pray for everything, and don’t ever let anyone convince you otherwise.”
~Sandy Novotny
A Precious Mess
Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.
~Malcolm Muggeridge
When I saw Oliver, my teenage daughter’s energetic thirty-something youth group pastor, bound up the seven steps leading to the stage to deliver the Sunday morning message, I did something I’d never done before. Turning to my husband, who sat beside my son and younger daughter, I tersely said, “I’m going. Don’t follow me.”
Oblivious to the eight hundred people who filled the dimly lit sanctuary, I strode down City Church’s outer aisle. Oliver’s opening words echoed behind me as I flung open the door that led to the oversized lobby, but I wasn’t listening. The glass door that led to the outside banged open after I pounded too hard on its metal bar. I didn’t care. I was free.
Heading left, I started walking past row after row of cars until I reached the long concrete drive that led to the main road. I had no idea where I was going. Or why I had left.
Maybe it was because a new wave of grief had crashed over me the night before. Or maybe it was because, during greeting time, the unsuspecting woman in front of me turned around and asked, “How are you?” I should have responded with the customary “Fine, how are you?” Instead, I replied honestly. I had to tell the story I didn’t want to share one more time — that six months ago bullying had driven my fourteen-year-old, Jenna, to end her life. Normally I found joy and freedom while worshiping God as I remembered Jenna praising Him beside me and pictured her adoring him now in heaven. Today, however, the tears cascaded down my cheeks.
Whatever the reason, I did know one thing. I wanted to be alone.
Minivans were swerving by me on the busy road as I walked on the narrow shoulder. So, I veered left into the first neighborhood I saw—a subdivision I’d never been in before. On either side of the entrance I noticed a black-and-white oval sign that adorned the towering twenty-foot-high wrought-iron gate anchored by thick brick towers. I was entering Holland Place.
As I walked down the sidewalk of Netherland Lane, my hands stuffed into the back pockets of my thrift-store Abercrombie jeans, I passed landscaped lawns and lofty brick homes. But my mind was engaged in a raw and real conversation with my King.
“I don’t understand any of this. I’ve done every healthy thing I can think of to walk through this grief, and nothing seems to be helping. I don’t know what else to do. If I can’t see or hear you, you’ve got to at least show me that you’re here. I need to know you care.”
I wasn’t expecting an answer. Half a mile into the Holland Place subdivision, however, I heard a voice.
“Mrs. Saadati?”
As I rounded the cul-de-sac, a woman dressed in a University of South Carolina Gamecocks navy t-shirt and denim shorts emerged from a grand house.
“Yes?” I answered, wondering who she was and how she knew my name. No one I was acquainted with lived in this neighborhood. “I’m Mrs. Saadati.”
“We’ve never met,” she said, “but my son is a seventh grader at the middle school your daughter attended last year. Jenna hasn’t been forgotten. The teachers, especially her band director and English teacher, and students still talk about her. Jenna’s photos and awards are still displayed. She was so talented and beautiful. Her impact is felt all over the school.”
The conversation under the crape myrtle at the end of the driveway was short. I had no words. Shocked, I simply listened.
“I think of you often and I pray for you,” she said. “I haven’t forgotten.”
“Thank you,” is all I could manage to mumble. Before continuing on, however, I asked one question.
“How did you know who I was?”
“I was passing my front door when I saw you walk by,” she said. “I don’t know how I knew who you were. I just did.”
Replaying the conversation in my mind, I retraced my steps. After walking for ten minutes, pondering what had just happened, I reached the entrance with the tall iron gate. That’s when I spotted it.
Squashed up against the curb beside the storm drain sprawled something fuzzy and flattened. Road kill, I thought. During my half marathon training runs, I switch to the other side of the street to avoid seeing the smashed critters. But that day, for a reason I’ll never know, I did something different. I stopped and crouched down to examine it.
What I saw surprised me. Rather than road kill, it was a run-over, rain-soaked teddy bear. It lay on its back, arms flung open as if waiting and wanting to be rescued.
That bear is a mess, I thought, but I’ll bet it’s precious to someone.
Then, though it wasn’t an audible voice, somewhere in my spirit God seemed to whisper, “You’re a mess, too, but you’re still really precious. To me.”
With tears flowing, I picked up the bear, almost afraid to touch it but not wanting to let it go. I didn’t have a purse to put it in and didn’t want to carry the filthy mat of fur into the service and explain. So, I cut through the parking lot to place it on my car before returning to the sanctuary.
Along the way I looked up twice. Still teary-eyed, I wasn’t focused on anything. But my eye caught a decal on a van that read, “Run . . . like a girl. 13.1.” The distance of the half marathon. The second time I raised my head, my eyes saw a different car’s magnet. The picture silhouetted four people — a dad, a mom, a boy, and a girl. My family’s new normal. Above it were written the words “Blessed Family.”
The crowd was filtering out of the sanctuary just as I returned. I found my husband, who looked
at me with an expression that said, “You missed all of it.”
Little did he know that God had crashed into my world and filled me with hope.
As I shook my head, my lips formed a delicate smile.
“Wait until I tell you,” I said. “God showed up. Even when I was AWOL from church.”
~Beth Saadati
Think Positive
The Godfather and His Daughter
A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.
~Author Unknown
My father and I were both good at pretending to be people we were not. I spent the first nineteen years of my life pretending I wasn’t gay, and he spent even longer pretending he wasn’t sane. Truth, you see, was a relative concept in our family.
Between the two of us, he was the better actor. After my father died in 2005, psychiatrists marveled at his ability to not break character or waver from his story for so long, saying he could have won Oscars for such a performance.
But my father, Vincent Gigante, was no actor; he was a crime boss.
Known in that world by his nickname, “Chin,” he was the head of the Genovese crime family and believed to be the capo di tutti capi of all five New York crime families.