We call it Thanksgiving. And to go with it, the iconic image of Pilgrims and Native Americans sharing a feast.
The back story I’ve been told is the Pilgrims were starving and would not have made it through the winter without the Indians’ help.The Pilgrims were thankful. The Indians were clueless what their generosity would lead to, but that’s another post… Let’s stick with thankful.
If I had been there, I would not have been thankful.
If you’re starving and food shows up as well as help to keep the food coming, that is a FLIPPIN’ MIRACLE. Had I been there, in between bites of turkey leg, I think I would have been concerned that the hat was doing nothing for me and absolutely marveling at what was unfolding.
I mean, people were going to DIE.
And now they were NOT.
So, I’m jumping off the thankful, gratitude bandwagon of this month and going to share some thoughts on miracles. Call me a rebel. And I know, Miracle Day doesn’t have the same rhythm as Thanksgiving. But titling is not my strong suit. You don’t want me naming things anyway.
Google defines miracle as: a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.
A divine agency? Like a temp agency dispatching miracles instead of clerical help? Oh, Google… Anyway, I like the “not explicable” part.
I was surprised that in none of the definitions I found did it say “sudden”. But the more I think about the miracles in my life, they were not what I would call sudden. There were whispers before the shouts. Smoke before the flames. The crunch of moccasins in the snow before a knock at the door.
My own miracles consist of something that was NOT THERE before. DID NOT EXIST AND I HAD NO EXPECTATION OF ITS EXISTENCE. I didn’t hear or see it coming. And that SOMETHING changed everything.
It is the day after day of starving and freezing. Starving. Freezing. More starving. More freezing. The cabinet is bare. The crops are dead. The fireplace only ashes. What could change? And then a knock at the door of neighbors with food and warmth. While the knock on the door was startling, the food had to grow, be harvested and cooked. Neighbors had to walk over, had to be willing to cross over barriers to reach out. And while the knock would be startling, it would take time to recover from starvation and time to thaw from the freeze.
But the timing of the miracle doesn’t change the miracle-ness of it. Growing, harvesting, preparing doesn’t change the surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws.