Most Americans believe that miracles occur–that a higher power sometimes intervenes in a supernatural way and saves the day. How about you? Do you believe that miracles are natural expressions of a higher law? Or an unexplainable though welcome aberration from the norm? My colleague, Eric Nelson, writing for the July 18, 2016 Communities Digital News, gives readers a clear picture of what happened in one “miraculous” cure. He encourages us to expect “miracles” as everyday expressions of the divine in our lives. Here’s Eric:
Last week marked the halfway point of the 2016 Major League Baseball season, and, once again, my favorite team has me praying for a miracle. Although I consider myself an optimist, I just can’t see my boys making it anywhere close to the World Series this year. Or next.
I suppose there’s some glimmer of hope to be had from the fact that the last miracle we saw – well, at least according to the 1977 movie “Oh, God!” – was the 1969 Mets, the assumption there being that God is some kind of celestial superhero whose occasional interventions result in some amazing things here on earth.
But what if everything we call a “miracle” isn’t so “miraculous” after all? What if it’s simply a misunderstood phenomenon waiting for an explanation? What if what we now think of as impossible, even supernatural, suddenly became possible and completely natural – for everyone?
I’m not just talking baseball here, but the really big stuff like our health and general well-being.
A few years ago, my wife and I had dinner with a good friend whose life some might describe as miraculous. When she was 18, she suffered from a debilitating disease that attacked nearly every organ of her body. Doctors recommended that she receive hospice care, as they did not expect her to survive. She soon fell into a coma.
After six months, she “miraculously” regained consciousness and decided she wanted to be transferred to a nonmedical care facility. For the next few months, she received basic physical care as well as prayer-based metaphysical treatment from a Christian Science practitioner. No pills. No intravenous tubes. No surgery….