Miracles are a process

     I'm sorry that this is a day late. Work has been busy and I can't complain because the more I work, the more I'm paid, and I go on holiday starting Saturday. However, breakfast shifts are crazy. I do not enjoy waking up before six, especially now that we've had daylight savings and it stays dark for so long. I've been thinking on and off about going full time, it's not like I'm doing anything else, but I'm still not willing to commit when I already come home each day feeling exhausted. Now I know why you're supposed to get a career in a field that you enjoy. Work takes up so much time; a revolutionary concept, I know. I feel like I haven't written in ages, which is a little exaggerated but it feels true, and I haven't spent a lot of time with my family. Between their extra curriculars and my work, I don't see very much of them and I'm only working part time. It's different. 

    Something that I've been thinking about for a bit and meaning to write about for the past two to three weeks is the healing process. Of course, me being me, I would think about this on Monday night and by the time I woke up on Tuesday and sat down to write, I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was that I wanted to write. So, here we are at last. 

    The Bible is full of miracles. Great bodies of water part, a baby is born to a virgin, Elijah was fed by ravens, a shepherd boy takes down a giant, and so many people are healed. Blind men see, lame walk, the deaf hear, and the mute speak. Diseases are taken away. Dead men walk. Sins are forgiven, our lives redeemed. We hear about them all the time in church. I've been reading in Acts and, at this point in time, Jesus has left and the early church has been formed. Thousands of people hear about the life of the messiah and see the disciples performing miracle and believe. I wish I understood why it often seems like the end of the bible was the end of miracles. The modern church has it's faults, which I've mentioned before, and this is another one of those areas where we're failing. I still believe in miracles and you hear about them but not much. In the days of the early church, people would lay the sick in the streets in the hope that Peter's shadow would pass over them and they would be healed. Acts 5:16 says that everyone was being healed. So why doesn't that happen today? God is just as alive and just as powerful as He was then so what's stopping us? I don't have the answer to that question and I sometimes wish I did. Last year showed me how much we need hope and love and joy, and not just those things but justice and grace too. We're so broken and in need of a savior but too consumed with our lives and our struggles that we can't accept miracles in our own lives. 

    I talk about little things all the time and I do believe that they're important. There are days when seeing the daffodils in our garden is all I can see to be thankful for and to keep me going. However, I think we need to stop underestimating some of the things we call small. The fact that I'm alive and breathing is a miracle. The fact that I can walk and talk and see and hear, that I'm healthy and loved is a miracle that cannot be overstated. Whether you believe in creation or evolution, I think anyone can attest to the fact that just being alive is a miracle. As a Christian, I'm so aware of what I do wrong and how often I fall short of what humanity was intended to be. We were made in the image of God, complete and perfect. Healing wasn't supposed to be required. It's easy to talk about salvation so casually because it's so familiar to us but I don't think we understand the magnitude of what was done that day. If we did, we would live so differently. That's why the early church grew so quickly. The savior they had been waiting generation after generation for had finally come and not only that, He exceeded their expectations and had been moving and healing and redeeming even before the greatest act of love that has ever occurred. He died to restore us to the completion but so often, we get in the way of that.

    I've been thinking about some of the miracles that happened and I have no idea how to comprehend that. Jesus allowed blind men to see for the time in their lives. Can you imagine spending your whole life in darkness and then suddenly one man shows you light and color greater than anything you could've imagined? I can't. I wonder what happens after that. As much as I can't imagine living in darkness my entire life, I can't imagine the sensory overload of seeing for the first time or waking up in the middle of the night, seeing the darkness, and being terrified that it was all a dream. In Acts 3, Peter heals a man who has been paralyzed for his entire life. Every day, he had been carried to Beautiful gate to beg but he wouldn't need to do that anymore. This one I relate to a little more. As a kid, your responsibility is to get through school but now that I've graduated, I can do pretty much anything I want to. I can choose whatever career I want, I can work or study, I can get married. The man whom Peter healed had spent most of his life as a beggar because that was all he was capable of. How did he choose what to do with his life when, all of a sudden, he didn't have to beg anymore? Going from having one option to having countless is overwhelming and scary. 

    Miracles are just a start. Problems going away doesn't mean that you've been made complete. I can't tell you how many times I've thought that I was finally over something, that a bad habit had been broken only to go right back to it. Healing is a process that we get in the way of. God is faithful to forgive and to heal but so often, we take back what we put in His hands or we never let that thing go completely. We're proud and scared all at the same time and I think that holds us back from miracles. I know I talk about this all the time but it's something that I wrestle with all the time. If we lived like we are loved, like we are a miracle, how much would be different? If the church showed this, how would the world be different. The early church had it's struggles, there was persecution and death, but the had a connection and a faith that I envy. This world is full of broken and hopeless people and I know that God is the only one who can redeem and forgive us. It sounds selfish but it really does have to start in us. I've been listening to Sadie Robertson's podcast, Whoa That's Good, and she recently did an interview with Taya Smith. They talked about how you are an unrepeatable miracle. There has never been and never will be someone exactly like you. God never intended for the world to be like this but He made a way for things to work out. Several years ago now, I wrote about a sermon called Get Off The Mat by Christine Cain. Healing is a process, yes, but it's also a choice we have to make. Peter was able to preach and to heal because of the healing that happened in his life. Even when Jesus was with him, he made so many mistakes, he even denied the man he later preached about. But, he was chosen, he was an unrepeatable miracle. 

    Let yourself be healed. Let yourself be a miracle, not just for yourself but for the people around you. Stop getting in the way of your healing because you feel like you're not enough or not worthy. Jesus already died, you've already been forgiven. In Romans 8, Paul says that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God. You're never too far gone to be healed or used to do incredible, miraculous things. 

    I'm sorry that this got so long, I pray that it makes sense and encourages you at least a little bit.

Yours Truly

Rey.