What Does a Miracle Look Like?
By Lisa Boyer
“Ask and it will be given you”
Matthew 7:7a
We prayed for a miracle…we needed a miracle. My sister Shirley had gallbladder cancer and the outlook for her stage of cancer was grim. Statistically she had no more than 18 months to live. She’d already lost over 20 pounds in less than two months and now she couldn’t eat much at all before “feeling full.” She was wasting away to nothing in a hurry!
We thought we had a miracle when she met with one of the best gallbladder specialists in the country, but for reasons he never explained, he passed her case off to someone else…who then passed it off to someone else. By the time the surgery was scheduled, we were down to someone “willing” to take her case. Obviously not the miracle we were praying for.
Her tumor was the size of a football and we would have loved to have a stunned surgeon come running out of the operating room shouting, “It’s a miracle, the tumor is gone!!” But he didn’t…instead, he came out of surgery and said, “Well, I bought her some time.”
A miraculous recovery after the surgery would have been awesome! But rather than the seven days she was told she’d be in the hospital, she was there for 20. It seemed that everything that could go wrong did.
We would have welcomed any miracle during her radiation and chemotherapy treatments, but instead she was pale, thin and tired.
Where was our miracle? Had it truly been the “time” the surgeon had bought? And could that be considered a miracle if that extra time was spent getting radiation and chemotherapy treatments?
I’m sure there was plenty that God was doing that we didn’t see, but if it were truly a miracle, wouldn’t it be huge and noticeable to everyone? After all, isn’t that what a miracle looks like?
Not always.
I just returned from our annual family campout where I spent a weekend with 23 family members. It was unremarkable as far campouts go…food, swimming, rain, leaky tents, campfires, card games and laughter.
Nothing was out of the ordinary, so I almost didn’t notice the miracle…Shirley was there! It has been 41 months since her surgery and she is still with us. And not just with us, she’s looks great, has gained weight and has more energy than I do! Bottom line, she is healthy and that is nothing short of a miracle from God. He answered our prayers…in His time and in His way.
GOING DEEPER:
1. Look around. Are there miracles you have missed because they didn’t come in expected ways?
2. If God hasn’t answered your prayers in the way you thought He should, will you trust Him and thank Him anyway?
FURTHER READING:
Isaiah 65:24; John 11:1-45; 2 Corinthians 12:8-10
Lisa has been married to Ted for 19 years and they have two teenage sons. She serves as a small group leader at Oakwood Church in Student Ministries.
