“It must be about 3:30 AM again,” I
thought to myself as I awakened from a deep sleep.
The wrenching stomach pain was again making its nightly
rounds. For the past
month, since losing my job, I had been awakened each night by a
whisper reminding me that I wasn’t earning income for my family.
The painful reminder of failing my family once again sent
chills throughout my body freezing me in sudden terror.
This time though, it was 4:30 AM.
No consolation for the recurring reminder and sorrowful
pain.
Each night as this
happened, my prayer was similar and simple, as I tried to comfort
myself back to sleep – “Father, may your will be done with my
career and job search. I
pray that you send me wherever you need me to go, to be whatever
you need me to be, to do whatever you need me to do and to say
whatever you need me to say.
I am yours and all I have is yours.
Please use me. Amen.”
On this particular
night, however, my feelings were stronger and deeper than simply
praying for his will. After
a particularly hurtful and disappointing day of job hunting and
networking, I needed something more than just his will.
I was awoken suddenly to pray for a miracle!
I think I can honestly say I don’t pray for personal
miracles often. I
pray for miracles almost daily in other people’s lives, in our
national and world leadership and even in the lives of people
I’ve never met.
This time was
different though. I
felt alone. At the
end of my ability to cope with the silence and emptiness.
I felt without hope. “I
need a miracle. That’s
the only way,” I told myself in that dark room, with my eyes
wide open, with nothing to see.
Then something
happened I wasn’t expecting.
I suddenly and literally felt selfish.
Guilty of gluttony. With
rapid-fire poignancy, and without effort, I was instantly
remembering the miracles He has lavished me with throughout my
life. Even miracles I
experienced growing up in a non-believing home, when He was
calling and I wasn’t answering.
The remembrance of
miracles poured through me. “John,
he found you. You are
saved. You have three
very special children through the miracle of birth.
Do you remember that your son was born weighing less than
two pounds? You have a wonderful wife and marriage. Your father is saved. Your
mother was saved before her death . . . .”
That powerful even
spiritual flow of thoughts poured through me for what seemed like
hours. I was frozen
speechless and thoughtless except for the barrage of God-affirming
miracles.
Some were small,
some large, but the miracles continued to flow.
The selfish feelings of my original request for another
miracle subsided and I was left with a peace and a reminder of His
joy in my life. Two
emotions I had never experienced before I knew him.
I guess that’s two more miracles through His grace.
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