Miracles Happen Every Day

"God is my Strength. "I love you, Lord, You are my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my Savior. My God is my rock in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me and my place of safety. I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and He saved me from my enemies."   Psalm 18:1-3

       Did you watch the rescue of the 33 miners from the mine collapse in Chile.  Wow.  What a miracle to be able to get them out alive.   And not just that, they were looking pretty healthy for having been stuck underground for such a long time.  How could anyone not see God's hand in that? 
       I am not sure if everyone realized that God was watching over those guys and protecting them from what would have been certain death in a lot of cases.   I watched that rescue knowing that I knew that I knew...  
       Miracles happen every day... God is with us all the time, there protecting us from the things that we don't even realize we need protection from...  Guiding us, nudging us... just being with us...
      Let me tell you a story of how God guides and directs us in ways that aren't always so obvious.   I am at a women's retreat this weekend.   I wasn't planning to go... I had been in a not so good place... I was really missing my Dad and was just not feeling too much like being with people...  I had even take a week off from Church and headed to Ohio to visit with a cousin whom I just love to hang out with... and don't see often enough...   But anyway we were at Home Depot buying some paint when I got an E-mail on my blackberry asking if I would work the video for the retreat.  I wasn't planning on going.   In fact I wasn't even planning on answering the e-mail.  But then a friend who was cc'ed on the email sent back a response and kind of volunteered me to be going...  I still wasn't planning on being there... and I still didn't answer for a few weeks.  I really had to pray about it.  Eventually God convicted me to go.   So I sent the response.  At the time no one else from my Church was planning to go that I knew of...  A few weeks later a friend from church said that she might go...  That was cool.   But anyway,  as I prepared for the weekend I was still not sure why I was going but I knew that God wanted me to be there....   Anyway here I am.   And God is beginning to show me the signs that YES He wanted me to be there....  As I was waiting to get registered an old friend arrived.  I had been supposed to travel a bit with this friend earlier in the year but we just never got to it.... (Life happened).  But I realized at that moment that I had really missed the time with this friend.  This friend is one of the people who helped me to realize that God was calling me to blog.   And as I looked at my friend walking up the walkway, I saw her see me and I could see that she was as glad to see me as I was to see her.   I am not really too used to people being glad to see me so that was nice.  As we got a chance to sit and catch up last night we realized that we had both been in the same dumpy place and God had called us to be here.  He engineered it.  We both listened when He called, to go where He called us to go; even though we had no real desire of our own to go.  And he blessed us for listening.   And it gets better yet...
       You know how I have spent years doing disaster work...  well right before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 I was deployed to Alabama to wait for it... Once it hit I was dispatched to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi for two weeks.  After that two weeks I returned home for a bit before heading back to New Orleans...   But the speaker from this retreat was from Bay St. Louis..... is that wild or what....   See God takes us places in our lives.... He gives us experiences and then He uses them to teach us....  I wasn't even walking with God when I was at Hurricane Katrina.... I was running away from Him... but He used that... Miracles happen every day... we often don't even notice them.... it's got to make you wonder....
      Dear Lord,  thanks for being patient with me when I put the blinders on...  thanks for gently pulling them away from my eyes and letting me see Your hand in my life.... You are so great, so awesome, so loving that I just can't even fully grasp Your greatness.  I am humbled by your sheer magnificance.  Thanks for loving me, and my friends and for watching over us and protecting us and just for being there.....