What Does a Miracle Look Like?
By
Lisa Boyer
“Ask
and it will be given you”
Matthew 7:7a (NIV)
Several years ago, 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.
There’s 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 had been
66 months since her surgery and she was still with us. And not just with us,
she looked great, had gained weight and had more energy than I did! Bottom
line, she was 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:
Lisa has been married
to Ted for more than 20 years and they have two teenage sons. Lisa administers
Fresh Start’s Facebook and blog, and loves hanging out with and impacting
teenage girls for Christ.
