“Small miracles are all around us. We can find them everywhere-in our home, in our daily activities and where they’re hardest to see, in ourselves. “
Sue Bender
How different my day started today in comparison to yesterday. My husband called me shortly after leaving for work this morning. While walking to the school where he teaches, he looked up and and was awed by the setting moon. This, from a man who never stops to smell the roses!! “Walk outside,” he says to me, “look toward the pond, the moon is the most beautiful I have ever seen. I just wanted to share that with you.”
Miracles everyday. Miracles are realistic. A flower blooms. A bird sings. A river flows. The sun rises. And, the moon sets! My life can become so crowded and busy that I leave no room for the beautiful, the unexpected. When I take time to pause and open myself to to the wonders all around me, I am in awe. My husband gave me that opportunity today.
How, then, can I harbor any doubt that there exists a Power Greater than me? This universe is full of marvelous happenings. By observing the miracles is nature, the imponderable, I get a sense, just barely, of the mystery and majesty of creation and the Force behind it. When I abandon my sense of wonder to the conventional and habitual of everyday life, I lose touch with my Maker. It’s when I take the time to realize that there is no way to comprehend the intricate design of what lies before me and around me, that I stand in awe and experience a closeness to my Creator.
David Stedl-Rast writes that God has given me five languages to experience the marvels: sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. So I think this morning my eyes watched the beauty of a harvest moon lighting the western sky just as the sun was beginning to make its appearance in the east. I smelled the scent of pine trees behind my apartment-musty, yet sweet. I could hear the traffic in the distance as the city began to stir to life for another day. I could feel, the softness of my dog’s fur as I petted her, watching and listening to all this unfold before me, and tasted that first cup of coffee for the day…savoring it all the more. I am profoundly grateful this day.
At times like these, I remember that “When a man or woman has had a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that he has now become able to do, feel and believe that which he could not do so before on his unaided strength and resources alone. He has been granted a gift which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being…he has been transformed…” Twelve and Twelve, page 107.
So when I observe my daughter walking hand in hand with her husband, or watch my grandchildren splash in the pool; hear the wind whip through the pines or watch the geese fly south for the winter, I will remember the miracles in God’s world-teeming with life, full of contrasts, yet yielding to me my special place in the Grand Design. The wonder and the awe washes over me, I take note and cherish it. His power is evident this early morning wherever I look. Awe is, at least in this moment, the vastness of the universe and the intricate tapestry He has woven.
One of my favorite Navajo prayers is:
Happily may I walk.
May it be beautiful before me. May it be beautiful behind me.
May it be beautiful above me. May it be beautiful below me.
May it be beautiful all around me.
In beauty it is finished.
That beautiful harvest moon, so big, so orange has set; and now I watch as the sun rises fully in all it’s majesty. Another day begins anew. I am thankful that God touched my husband’s heart today and made him pause in awe and wonder…and that he thought to share it with me.
“But what shall never, never change is the wonder, the indescribable wonder to me of seeing the Earth lying in space as in the hollow of God’s hand. “
Zenna Henderson
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