Recognizing a Miracle

Before I get back into the real business of blogging around here. I have a little personal Christmas miracle I’d like to share if you will indulge me…

I can not deny that I live a very blessed life.  

From my husband to my children, my parents, my siblings, friends, our home… The blessings are overwhelming.  

There is no time of year that I feel this deep sense of blessing more than at Christmas.

When we celebrate the greatest miracle of all, that our Lord humbled Himself to be born in a meager stable.

But, beyond all of this, over the past year, the Lord has allowed me to watch a miracle.

My nephew Patrick is that wonderful miracle.  

Last October, as I shared here, he was born under dire circumstances.  

After a long stay in the hospital, he came home, to what, we didn’t know.  

Would he talk, walk?  

No one knew.  

At that point, it was a miracle that he was still alive.  

Survival was his first miracle.  

We hung by him minute after minute, begging God all along for the miracle he was working.

All that led up to last Christmas.  

Soon the thrill of his survival waned and our attention was taken in by other things.  

But, as I realized this Christmas, as I watched my father, Patrick, play with his grandson, Patrick, God was busy working a miracle all year long.

Miracles are funny, aren’t they?  

Very rarely do they happen quick enough to knock us back as we cover our mouths and gasp.  

No, more often they are slow, like growth while we are sleeping.  

In the morning we don’t see the change. And only take note of the change, of the miracle, after weeks, months, a year.

The truth about baby Patrick is that he is not only here, he is perfect.  

Like any normal one year old he is walking, waving, laughing, eating, and sticking up for himself in a herd of cousins.  

He will melt your heart with his “gentle kisses” and push you away when his mother walks by.  

I thought about adding in here a few pictures of Patrick in those first scary days of his life.

The days he spent in the cold cap, connected to machines, out of the reach of even his mother…by why?  

The Lord has mercifully erased all traces of those wounds from this perfect little boy, so why should I remember him that way?  

I prefer to see him laughing and playing in his Grandpa’s arms.

Last Christmas I stitched up this ornament for Patrick and the two other babies in our family born in 2012.  

On the back of his, I stitched his name, the date, and the inscription, “miracle boy”.  

At the time I believed that he was already a miracle, and I hoped for the best, but I hesitated to believe that God would ever be this good to us.

I hope your life is as full of miracles as mine.