Do You Believe in Miracles?
Q: Do You Believe in Miracles?
A: Hasn’t this question been asked in songs, hallmark cards, on Shakedown Street and in strange psychic parlors throughout time? I raise my hand excitedly as if I can’t withstand shouting the answer out loud. YES! I believe in the magic that is exposed through the miracles of life. Some days are more radiant than others and yet, each day offers a healthy dose if only I am open to it. It is mostly the animals, predator birds and the fecund nature where I live that reminds me on a daily basis.
Recently, I lost a dear brother. My heart still aches so deeply at the thought that he won’t be home when I next visit the family farm in Maui. I had an excruciating moment of receiving the news of his death, of which I will save for another time. It is taking much longer than I could have anticipated processing his passing, for his impact on my life is a constant reveal. He was a farmer and steward of a land that has raised me in my formative years and every pulsing cell of plant, animal, and lifeforce on that land has some of Josh’s love wrapped up within it. That in itself is a miracle. Hundreds of people came to gather in his name while the ocean waves crashed upon the cliffs. His legacy is having educated and cultivated more farmers than we can count who deeply care and respect their personal collaboration with Mother Earth.
His death brought me unexpectedly face to face with a very subtle hidden fear of my own mortality that had nestled behind a false sense of absolute fearlessness. Thankfully, this was brought to the surface as I questioned what this fear was protecting. Inside I saw this guardian of the threshold obscuring deeper layers of pride that created an immense amount of resistance to my Lord. It was heinous and so important for me to recognize. I thought to myself… “I know I love God so much and if I have this much resistance to Him, then…???? How?”
So, death was up for me last week and the increasing anxiety was surfacing around the projected future date of my certain moment of ‘lights out’. And then I almost died.
In the midst of a major intersection, the light turned green and I rolled through as anyone would. From the corner of my left eye, I saw something I will never forget. I turned to see a massive truck hurtling towards me at full speed as the two men in the cabin had run the red light. It was so surreal, seeing the terror in their eyes, the slam of the brakes as their bodies rushed into the windshield and smoke begin to encircle the vehicle. Within just a few feet of my car, they had been able to melt their tires into the pavement just enough to alter what only nanoseconds before had been my imminent death. The irony of it all? I wasn’t afraid. I looked over and said to myself, ‘this is it’ and without hesitation or choice, had accepted the moment.
This experience has changed me. The fear that had been mocking me at night was gone immediately, and my heart has swelled up with unprecedented levels of gratitude that sometimes I feel I am floating rather than aligned to the usual gravitational pull. I didn’t die, and I felt so completely protected that I can only thank God for saving my life in that instant. This would fall into the miracle category, for instance.
In a time of death, there is rebirth. My sister who was married to Josh is courageously sharing the message that we don’t have to wait for a tragic death to remind the people we love that we LOVE them. And with my recent brush with this universal phenomenon, I also saw that we don’t have to die physically to be reborn in love in our hearts. Love is STILL the answer, it always is and I love you…so much. Who do you love so much? Tell them today, “I love you, pass it on”.
