miracles: part two.

In our home church this past Sunday, our friend Matt shared about thankfulness–for obvious reasons. I remember one part in particular as he shared about our lives being miracles and the miracle of new breath each morning.

While I do consider a new day a miracle, it started me thinking about just how much our lives are miracles. It seems so tangible to me this week.

When we chose our house, we didn’t have a particular reason. We had a feeling in our Spirit that we went with, and this house is a miracle. Our house and our neighborhood have shaped our lives since we arrived, and now entirely shape our work and ministry and friendships.

We have had people supporting us month after month for four years, providing for our rent and our lights and our bread; our water and our car and our date nights. This is a miracle: there are so many people involved and so many steps in the process and somehow we receive a check each month that is the collective gift of a small army.

After being in Thailand for four years, we have had no more than small motorbike accidents that only involve us. This is an absolute miracle. Just this week a young girl on a bicycle cut me off on the motorbike, shooting directly across in front of me as I came at her going 45 kmh. Knowing where she was and where I was, I have absolutely no idea how she got across without a collision, and miracles like this happen all the time.

We have been so healthy here. We have neither had dengue or malaria; we have had no surgeries or major health concerns. My broken finger was minuscule, and Stephen’s machete-and-thumb accident healed back incredibly–and he actually has the tip of his thumb, which I really didn’t think was going to return! We have really been so healthy and protected from so many ailments.

We haven’t been robbed or threatened, despite living in a seedier part of a border town. Instead, we are friends with our neighbors and are privileged to know and trust them, and often have their protection.

Even today, we just drove five hours of curvy, mountainous “Death Highway” for a friends wedding. We arrived safely around every corner, we avoided every large truck crossing the non-existent middle line, and we didn’t careen off the side of the very high cliffs we drove along. Instead, our car broke down once we arrived at our destination. And we are here with a genius of a friend willing to help us. Again.

We are enjoying friendships and relationships in our community over cultural barriers and age barriers and economic barriers and language barriers. This is a miracle.

We are seeing miracles even in the lives of people: fathers that drink less and are engaged with their children; a man blind from meningoencephalitis seeing again; a woman’s breech baby turning on its own!

He is a God of miracles, and we are witnessing them: in this place, this year, this week, and even today!

“Your ways, God, are holy.
What God is as great as our God?
You are the God who performs miracles;
you display your power among the peoples.”
Psalm 77:13-14