Miracles

Miracle – “A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of divine agency.” – Oxford dictionary

Ever experience a miracle? . . . you are one, as am I and every other person, a “…surprising and welcome event of divine agency …” regardless of what others or you may think or say.

Throughout my life I’ve gratefully experienced many undeserved, inexplicable miracles that have blessed and encouraged my faith to keep-on-keeping on, knowing that His Best is Yet to Come!

Miracles Still Happen is a real-life story, also a movie, of the inspirational faith of Chisty and Kevin Beam’s young daughter Annabel inflicted with an incurable disease. Recently watching it on Netflix, little Annabel’s pain wracked cry to her mother,

“Mommy, I just want to go to Heaven with Jesus where there is no pain.”

 sparked a near tragedy miracle memory from years past of my young son words to me,

“Daddy, I couldn’t hold on. God said the man would hold me up until you came.”

Below is my young son’s Miracles Still Happen, real-life story I will forever rejoice in as I journey Home . . .

Ice Angel

Bundled up, patiently peering down a dark hole in the ice is a favorite Alaskan pastime. One balmy minus 20-degree day, my two young sons and I decided it was the perfect day to go ice fishing.

Years ago, firing up our snow machines we headed out from the small Inupiat village north of the Arctic Circle where we lived. Our original plan was to travel about 10 miles upriver to a rumored ‘secret hot-spot’. A few miles upriver my youngest, huddled tight against my back, yelled he was getting cold . . . so was I 😊

Suddenly, we spotted several iced-covered holes recently bored in the river’s frozen ice . . . Nirvana! Stopping to inspect the holes, a ‘warm-up’ Plan B flashed to mind . . . I explained to my sons that our Eskimos friends wouldn’t have drilled these holes unless there were “Lotsa’ fish here”. They bought my sales-pitch. We unloaded our gear, chipped through the thin ice covering the holes, and began fishing.  Encouraging my sons we were probably in for a “‘record catch”, I already felt warmer. Ten minutes later, three plump graylings lay frozen stiff on the ice . . . a surprisingly fortuitous beginning to my proclaimed “record catch”.

My youngest son called from his spot downstream,

“Daddy, I dropped my pole down the hole”

Such are joys of ice-fishing with a three-year-old 😊. I told him to come take my pole and fish through my hole and went to try and retrieve his pole from the river bottom.

Lying flat on the ice I spotted his pole ten feet below and began trying to snag and retrieve it. Several minutes later, still unsuccessful in my retrieval efforts, I began to hear muffled, childlike grumbling??? Upstream, I saw my oldest son pulling up another grayling through the ice. Glancing sideways to where my youngest was supposed to be fishing in my spot . . . he was gone!

Standing up, my heart dropped!!!  My young son had wandered off downstream to where there was an open lead in the river.  Grumbling, submerged up to his waist in the freezing water, he struggled attempting to crawl onto a broken off ice slab.

I ran to him; flattened out prostrate on the ice; grabbed one of his flailing arms; and dragged him out onto solid ice. Shouting to my oldest to follow us back to the village, we raced home. Arriving home in record time, he was frozen to the snow-machine seat. Once inside, I literally chipped ice off his snow pants and parka before submerging him in a tub of warm water.

Tucking my thawed out little guy into bed that night, we said our prayers together, thanking God for His protection. I told him I was proud of him for being strong enough to hold on until I could get to him. The innocent childlike trust of his response revealed the miraculous, Providential truth . . .

“Daddy, I couldn’t hold on. God said the man would hold me up until you came.”

I hugged him crying, “…the man…”, God’s guardian angel sent to spare my son from a horrifying, frozen drowning, and from grief this father could never imagine being able to bear.  I will continue to thank Him throughout eternity.

“For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all thy ways.

In their hands they will bear you up.”

Psalm 91:11-12

May the miracle you are experience many “A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of divine agency” as you journey towards Home.

Keep Looking Up ^ . . . His Best is Yet to Come!