[talk: Miracle Maker.]

It's been a rough go these last few weeks.  There has been much heartache, must blind-siding news - too much, just too much.

And without going into the details of each one - I know of one mother of four young children, who is battling cancer and currently in palliative care; another young mother who is awaiting results for her recent cancer-fighting treatment; a young grandmother who has been given a fatal diagnosis - coming as a complete shock to her family; another mother who is awaiting the birth of her miracle grandchild in four weeks ... and has been given the devastating news of even less time than that - another complete shock to all those involved.

Then there's my cousin, Jono - and his journey after his December car accident ... it has been both inspiring and exhausting ... believing for miracles, wondering when they're going to happen ... more on that in a moment.

Sunday morning was a beautiful time at our home church.  My brother happened to be leading ... and there was just a sweet, sweet spirit.  There was a testimony during that sacred time from one of my mentors - of how he was healed of a brain tumour over a decade ago ... something I hadn't thought of in such a long time.  And it was a poinent moment for me - because I had been praying, asking God for a miracle for each of these circumstances ... but when more and more requests came forward, I found myself wondering which needs God would choose.  I know God heals, I know He can do all things.

But how overwhelmed I felt, how insignificant my own needs.  

Because it is easy for me to look at different circumstances and say, "... maybe they need the miracle more; maybe they're more deserving; perhaps that one has had a good life, but that one has so much promise ... " yada yada yada.    And yet in the service I felt SUCH an overwhelming thought go through my head.  The knowledge that miracles are for everyone.  That God doesn't have a quota to meet, or a limit to what He can do.  And this stirred me ... for it actually feels like there is an epidemic going on in our community - one where we have now come to a place where we are desperate and need a miracle.  It feels like disease and devastation are contagious.  

I remember all too well, needing my own miracle with Shalom.  I was desperate - clinging on to any mustard seed of hope that I could.  I also remember something that a wise woman said to me ... she said, "... God's got your attention now.  Listen closely.  Cherish these conversations.  It will be too soon that the busyness of life will crowd your mind again."

She was SO right.

Times of desperation - for those who have faith - are the moments when we find ourselves closest to Him.  It's when we cognitively rely on Him for everything ... it's truly a beautiful season.  And I know that He doesn't answer everything the way we would like Him too.  I know that all too well.  But that's not because He can't, and not because we are not deserving.  It's because "He's got this" ... He knows the beginning and the end.

My cousin Jono spoke yesterday.  Not just a "noun" here and a "verb" there.  Complete sentences.  His voice is soft, but his thought pattern and language skills are there.  He still has a very long, very hard journey ahead of him - but this milestone is MASSIVE, as you can imagine.  God is working His miracle power ... not all at once, but in a journey that He knew from the beginning.

So ... one.  Miracles are for everyone.  Two.  Hard times bring us closer to God.  And three.  Miracles can come to pass in the way of a journey, not just instantaneous.

A final thought comes from a video I saw that a girlfriend of mine posted on FB a short time back.  It was of a young woman, in her early 20's, who was obviously in the last stages of fighting caner.  In her video, she spoke of miracles, and I'm paraphrasing here, but she basically said that people still ask her if she was still expecting her miracle.  And she replied, again - paraphrasing here - that she had lived "x" amount of time longer than the doctors ever expected - and THAT was her miracle.

I was speaking to a family friend who's husband passed from cancer, and she said that the miracle was that he never suffered with seizures.  And yet another widow said their miracle was that her husband never suffered, never had pain, even as he succumbed to cancer.

So, friends - number four - we can experience daily miracles, if we open our hearts and eyes to see what's really going on around us.     

I think that if we are honest with ourselves, miracles are actually for our own selfish reasons.  We don't want to lose the one we love, we want everyone to be healthy and whole.  We don't want to experience loss.  Of course we don't.   God gives us a desire to live - to breathe, to love.  We respect life, we LOVE life.  But I will close this post with a thought from that same young woman in her palliative care bed ... she said in her video, "... what people don't realize is that even miracles are temporary."  WOW.  The reality is, we don't know our last day ... we can be healed of tumours at noon, and perish in another way at midnight.  Death is inevitable, and miracles are simply there to remind us that there IS a God who sees us, who hears us.  They are not to save us from death - we will all die - they are to renew our faith.

So the real question is, do you - does your loved one - have peace about where you will go, if your miracle looks different than what you hoped?

I hope you know the Miracle Maker.