For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading through the Gospels. All throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are examples of Jesus performing miracles. He casts out demons, heals diseases, tells paralytics to walk, turns water into wine, brings people back from the dead, and commands the sea to be calm.
The Jesus of the bible is the same Jesus we worship today.
While I’m reading scripture, I have an easy time believing that Jesus is totally capable of doing the impossible. But for some reason, I can’t seem to make that belief reach my heart during normal day-to-day life. I want so badly to believe in miracles… so badly to believe that the Jesus I’m reading about can still do amazing things. With a slightly doubting heart, I began to timidly ask Jesus if I could see miraculous things.
And, instead of reprimanding me for my unbelief, he kindly obliged. Twice.
Miracle #1:
Our team’s assignment this month is to pray for and work in one of the toughest schools in our area, Sector Siete. From what we were told, this school was supposed to be the hardest school for missionaries to get into. Because the students were out of school during our first week here, we spent a couple of days walking to the school to pray over it. We prayed for peace, for the presence of God to fill the halls and rooms, and to see incredible miracles happen.
Man oh man, did we get our miracle.
A few of the women that work at the CLFCR finke (Spanish for “farm”) we are working and living at have children that go to the Sector Siete school. When the students came back for classes, our team was scheduled to meet Louisa, one of those sweet women, at the front gate in hopes of being allowed into the school. This was supposed to be a very hard task. Missionaries rarely, if ever, were allowed into this school.
But God opened the gates as if they were automatic doors to a grocery store. We not only were allowed into the school, they were ecstatic to have us there!
Since then we have played with children that are more than likely being abused at home, letting them know that they are seen and they are valued. We’ve helped teachers with PowerPoint presentations, washed dishes with the kitchen staff, cataloged books with the librarians, and had wonderful talks with the English teacher.
What was supposed to be impossible, God made possible through his incredible power.
Miracle #2:
Early yesterday morning, I woke up to find my teammate, Keri, sitting on a bench and hunched over in tremendous pain. You guys have to understand, this girl is one tough cookie. She doesn’t whine or complain in the slightest bit. So, to see her showing so much pain and letting us know she needed to go to the hospital, I knew this wasn’t good.
The bus ride into town was slower and bumpier than usual. Which each mile, her pain was increasing… to the point that she was throwing up. No bueno.
We finally made it to the clinic and, after 3 hours, a lot of miscommunication and filling out piles of papers, the doctor agreed with what we suspected it was: a kidney stone. We decided to go into the city, to a hospital with better equipment, to get it confirmed.
As Keri was getting an ultrasound, the doctor was stunned. He said she had all of the symptoms of having kidney stone, but he couldn’t find one. He couldn’t find the kidney stone that was there earlier that morning! By the time we made it back to the finke, the only pain Keri was experiencing was a little bit of soreness. This morning, she was 100% better.
Miracles don’t always come in the form of the blind seeing, the lame walking, or people walking on water… sometimes they come in the form of being welcomed into a school in the slums, a teammate’s kidney stone being dissolved, a child finding refuge in a finke, or a mother still being able to sing for joy after her husband has left her and their newborn child.
Because the God that loves us isn’t small, there are no small miracles. But all miracles do have one thing in common: the God of the universe working to make what seems impossible possible… all because of his glory and his love for us.
“But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)
