The Everyday, Common Miracle

I love the saying that advises us to “expect miracles.” The problem isn’t that there are no miracles; the problem is that you don’t expect them or even recognize them when they happen. When you come to realize that miracles are constantly happening if you are paying attention, miracles will appear before your very eyes.

No, I am not talking about the burning bush type of miracle and perhaps that is the problem. Most of us have an idea of what a miracle should look like, so that when an everyday, common miracle occurs, we dismiss it. I personally am amazed at the miracles that occur around me constantly. Every time I pick up a telephone and hear a familiar voice or see a plane flying in the sky I think, “Wow, what a miracle.” I am in awe that I can sit at my computer and read an email from a person I most likely will never meet in a country to which I have never traveled while I am washing a load of dishes, washing and drying my clothes and preparing dinner in the crockpot. Now, those are miracles!

Perhaps as a society we have become jaded and a tad spoiled by the miracles that surround us. We don’t see them as miracles; we simply see them as everyday occurrences. I believe that the problem isn’t that miracles are not happening. I believe the problem is that miracles are happening at such a rapid speed that we have become accustomed to the miraculous.

The trick to noticing miracles is to begin to expect them and then be willing to recognize one when you see it. Stop taking everything for granted and see the miracles that surround you. Just think about the journey you make to work every day that you take for granted. Consider if there were no such thing as cars and buses and you had to walk. When you change your perspective, you can begin to see the everyday, common miracle. Yes, there are miracles, so many in fact the challenge won’t be to find one; the challenge will be to not be overwhelmed by how many are happening at any given time.