Miracles

I’ve believed in miracles for other people. My knees have hit the hard, frigid floor, beseeching the One for whom nothing is impossible for other people. Tears of anguish, tears of hopeful supplication have welled from my eyes then streamed down my face as my heart has been reassured that miracles will be wrought for other people. But for me – well, for me, I mostly limited my vision to the Creator’s presence – the Creator’s work – in my life in small ways, and, until now, that has been enough.

I mostly see God in tiny things: baby fingernails, Mexican poppies, the smell of desert Creosote on the damp breeze, butterflies, rainbows, hot air balloons. I do not look for miracles. That has been to my detriment. I have placed my (and your) omniscent, omnipresent, omnipotent God in the tiny box that I believed He belonged, never once considering that my confinement of Him could be my very undoing.

I have survived some truly extraordinary trials (at least in my mind, and some of which you know), and I have never ceased to be grateful that I have come through to the other side, but there is always a part of my heart – a part of my soul – that waits for that proverbial other shoe to drop. And last week it did. In all truth, it fell with more of a shift of tectonic plates than it did with a simple, muffled clatter. You see, my doctor found a very large, fixed mass where no woman ever wants a mass found.

Monday, I faced perhaps not the most frightening day of my life, but certainly one of the top ten, and I faced it utterly, humanly alone. Absolutely, God was with me, but no human hand was there to hold, and my, did I need that hand. So, in the void of my hands, I stared at a blank future, and found that I could not even utter the prayer lodged in the depth of my aching, terrified heart.

Desperately I longed to be held by arms I could feel, reminded by a voice that I could distinctly, audibly hear whisper that no matter the outcome of the test, I would be fine – I would stay strong enough to face what was coming, what threatened the future for which I still yearned. But there were no tangible hands or arms. Just me surrounded by a waiting room full of women facing down in various stages the same demons.

When my name was called by a radiology tech in hot pink scrubs, I trudged behind her slowly. I submitted to the tests, and waited in desolate isolation already sure of the answer, yet still dreading that very answer. But then came the unexpected – the mass so evidently tactile under my fingertips just the day before was nowhere to be found. I was Gobsmacked, felt my breath catch, had to remind myself to breathe.

“Are you sure?” I had to ask more than once. “My doctor was so sure. It was an enormous mass.   I felt it myself yesterday.”

“The radiologist says there is nothing there, not even anything to indicate that there had been something there to begin with,” the pink-clad tech replied smiling.

I could’ve kissed her, but I was still in shock. (Besides,that would’ve been extremely awkward not to mention weird and completely inappropriate.) I moved from the hard, cold table, face frozen in a mask of disbelief, and calmly walked from the room, changed, and went home. I texted or called the handful of people who knew of the tests, and 4 of them used the word “miracle.” I have to say, that I truly believe that is the only explanation.

One friend says that she believes God said, “Enough.” I absorbed her interpretation into my soul and rejoiced that He loves us (me) enough to know when we truly have reached the point when we have had “enough.” I’ll share now that it is in the past: I had already decided that if my doctor had been right, if what I was facing was (in her words) “an extremely aggressive form of cancer” I was, in all likelihood, not going to fight it. No, I had made the decision to simply, gently let go, stop fighting the battles of this world, and quietly, peacefully go Home to Him. But that wasn’t what He wanted. Maybe it wasn’t my time, maybe I still have work to do in His name, or maybe I’m just being ridiculous. Smiling crookedly now, I can say perhaps it could be all three. I just know that I don’t have to make that decision anytime soon.

To celebrate, I went for a run in the glorious Arizona winter sunshine, and I thanked Him for loving me enough to heal me. I thanked him for my miracle, for showing me that His power is still at work in big ways, and I acknowledged in humility that I had sold Him short. And do you know that I felt in the desert breeze His voice reassure that He loved me even beyond that?

He is truly amazing.