Do Easter Miracles Still Happen?

I wasn’t looking for an Easter miracle.  Although getting to church early enough to get a seat would have been a nice surprise.

 I kept telling my family, “we are going to be on time”, but they were all right….
on time on Easter is very, very late.

On Easter eve, I asked my Walk to Emmaus Reunion Group to please pray for healing in my arm and shoulder. I was tired of the unexplained nerve zinging across my shoulder which felt like someone was playing the “Devil Went Down to Georgia” on a fiddle.  The zinging was hindering the diagnosis of other arm pain. That after a x-rays, a neck MRI, a shoulder MRI, a round of steroids, a steroid shot, a neck cortisone injection, 800mg of ibruphrophen regularly, and enough time with my PT I thought we were dating…. I was ready to be better and move on.   

I had a sweet friend take me to two of the mentioned my doctor appointments, because she said, “You take care of enough people, someone can take care of you!”  I shared with the group that maybe God wanted me to learn through this experience to learn to ask for help.   

Later that night, I helped the Easter Bunny fill the baskets and went to bed.  I was unable to sleep due to my jelly bean sugar high and my arm. I ran the scenario in my head of storming in my doctor’s office telling them “to just cut my arm off”.

Rushing the next morning to get ready for church “on time’, I didn’t give a lot of thought to my arm.  And we did eventually get a seat.  As I was listening to the sermon I thought, this is the first time my shoulder hasn’t hurt in church in forever.  I almost said something to my husband. 

Then the pastor says, paraphrasing of course, “as we were praying for today’s service and the church members, we felt like it was pressed upon us that someone was going find repair in their marriage, a grown man was going to cry for the first time ever, and someone was going to find healing in their arm.”  I looked at my husband wide eyed. 

Well folks, it’s been two days and it is feeling better than it has in months. 

So I am going to assume he was talking about me.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” -Albert Einstein

Praying for a baby...

Recently I shared my testimony with my church, and it seems like a fitting place to start. My parents were separated right after I was born and officially divorced when I was two. I was not “knowingly” baptized as a child. (my father’s mother may have had my brother and I baptized, which doesn’t surprise me!) 

I grew up in a Unitarian church with my mom, and The Catholic church when visiting my dad.  At a Catholic service with my dad I almost gave my step-grandmother a heart attack doing the sign of the cross with the left hand instead of right. I think it is the sign of devil or something, who knew???

Fast forward to being happily married with a beautiful 6-week old child and after seeing that little miracle, it was time to go to church! So we went to a church across the street and were received by a wonderful congregation of elderly folks eager to show us some love.  Not having family of our own in town, it was a perfect fit.

Unbeknown to us, at that same church, a wonderful lady, Belle, had been sitting in the church nursery for six months by herself each Sunday.  She sat and prayed for a baby to come to the church. Well, she prayed and we arrived. Belle was a little upset with me though because I was quite the neurotic first time mom and wouldn’t leave our baby in the     nursery with her… at least for the first couple months. 

We later joined that church, (Grace United Methodist Church) in Savannah, GA, and on my 30th birthday I was baptized there, as well as our first child. It was a wonderful start for my little family in understanding the importance of the church and a church family. I also learned that church people are “normal” too. And because I was “officially a Christian”, I wasn’t expected to be perfect, or be just like anyone else. That Faith wasn’t a thing, but a Journey.

I became friends with the pastor, Brother Eric, and his wife, Carol, and we often had refreshing, candid conversations as my year old daughter would take all the books off the shelf in his office, one by one. They forgave me when I made homemade chicken pot pie and Brother Eric had a mild heart attack after he left that evening… I also learned about the painful loss of their young son Jonathon to a brain tumor on May 19th, 1982.  

While at Grace, I collaborated on a wonderful VBS that had almost 60 kids, the prior year there were only 10. It was a huge success, and just what this stay-at-home mom’s confidence needed, a match made in Heaven! But it wasn’t until 9 years later, when I was writing down my thoughts  to share my testimony, that I realized the importance of Belle faithfully praying each Sunday for a baby.