"Everyday miracles...."

"It's the everyday miracles
that keep my hope alive.
It's the way you move in little things,
that helps me survive..."

I am so loving the message in Sara Groves', "Everyday Miracles," tonight.  It speaks to me of what is most essential.

I've begun to realize that it's the little things which take my breath away these days.  The everyday, the common place, the simple acts of unsought grace found in unexpected places.

One recent weekend was filled with them.  A friend's willingness to put self aside and take me to the airport before dawn, another's offer to transport a fragile item back home so that I didn't have to worry about it surviving two flights...one lovely moment after another...

For the most part, I was aware of these unexpected miracles, because they were directly in my path.  And I was deeply grateful for each instance of blessing. 

But, it was what I was privy to on my last flight that I'd like to write about tonight.  A delayed flight out of Chicago put a large group of us in the boarding area for a few hours.  One fellow wheelchair-bound traveler, was obviously very advanced in years and unaccustomed to his circumstances.  He sat quietly, but it wasn't hard to note his concern about making his connection in the next city.  He politely asked the ticket agent, over and over again, if we were going to make it in time since his son would be waiting for him at his final destination, and he did not have a cell phone to alert him of the delay.

When we finally boarded, he was whisked down the jetway first, and by the time I followed along with my later boarding group, he was already seated next to a young woman and her daughter.  I took the seat directly in front of them.  

During the course of our two hour flight, I was brought to tears more than once by his seatmate.  She was so genuinely interested in his welfare and comfort.  She asked him questions about his life, his family, his concerns.  She made sure he had refreshments and helped him when he needed to leave his seat.  She intervened for him with the airline staff so that they called ahead and had them hold his next flight for ten minutes so that they could get him off of our plane and through the terminal so that he wouldn't have to spend the night in a strange city because of a missed connection.

When we landed I couldn't help but talk to her daughter, since mom was still busy caring for her new friend.  I asked her if she knew what a kind and generous mom she had.  I won't forget her response for a long time, she said, "that's my mom...she is always like that."  There was such a sense of "why, of course.." to her reply. 

It made me realize that this was not a rare moment in her mother's life...this was her life.  And her daughter knew it.  It was clear that she was witnessing miracles everyday in her mom's presence.  Miracles of kindness, serendipitous acts of grace.

I felt blessed.  No less so than if I'd been on the shores of the Gallilean Sea with the Master, on a Lynn, Massacusetts beach with Mary Baker Eddy as she ministered to a lame boy, or seeing a terminal diagnosis reversed through prayer. 

I'm on the look-out for everyday miracles...and, like the heart-shaped stones my sisters and I collect, I seem to be finding them around every corner. 

with Love,

Kate