Do You Believe in Miracles? (Whatever Wednesdays--A Link Up)

   

  I've been thinking a lot about miracles this week. 

Wondering what a miracle would look like in our family's situation. Considering the idea that little miracles have been happening all along the journey for my brother and his wife and their daughter...Being moved to tears by how gracious our God is to answer prayer, even prayers as small as mustard seeds (admittedly mine sometimes) and how I KNOW He is moving behind the scenes, orchestrating all of this in His own beautiful way even though sometimes we do not see those things. 

      Many of you have seen the button on the side of my page and have read about my brother's baby girl and the health struggles they are going through right now-- in summary, little Cordelia was born on March 15th of this year with a very rare liver condition called Biliary Atresia and was discovered to need a liver transplant as soon as possible. In some cases a corrective surgery can be done which can sometimes (though rarely) correct the condition, but almost always allows at least some more time for the child to grow and develop. That was not an option in Cordelia's case-- her liver was too badly damaged.

    So, after many months of waiting for a donated liver the doctors decided they would use her mother's liver and performed surgery yesterday... The whole thing is a miracle. That doctors can perform such an intricate and delicate surgery with accuracy and success. That a baby who 60 years ago would have had few options for healing, has the ability to be given this incredible gift of life today. That, more specifically, a mother can donate a piece of her own liver to her daughter and that it will restart itself in her daughter's body and then regenerate itself in hers....MIRACLES. 

    And these are only the things we have seen. I trust that, in this entire process, God has been moving His hand in unseen ways to protect Cordelia and to orchestrate the pieces of this story. 

   So, while I didn't have time to compose a lengthier post about this, I wanted to use this space today to remind you that miracles do still happen. That God calls us to trust Him and that His word says that if we have "faith as small as a mustard seed" mountains can be moved!  

   I will confess that my faith was littered with fear and anxiety as I prayed for my brother and his wife and Cordelia over the weekend on particularly on Monday. Despite my littered faith and prayers, I felt God's grace saying, "Lisa, I didn't say your faith had to be perfect, only that it needed be present."

   And, at the end of the day, while none of this is about me or my measly prayers...I think God uses the stories of people in our lives to stretch our own faith. 

   So, today, I leave you with a couple of quotes about miracles...

    

Miracles are events that make us feel there is more to life than what we see. Whether we perceive miracles in the beauty of nature, in the amazing fact of life itself, in remarkable healings from disease or despair, or in small acts of kindness, the miraculous is still with us today. (From Belief.net)

“A miracle is when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A miracle is when one plus one equals a thousand.” ― Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ― Albert Einstein

“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” ― C.S. Lewis

If you have a story about miracles or faith in particular this week that are posted ANYWHERE on your blog (even a post from 2 years ago or as part of your bio), link up that page this week. I'd love this string of posts to point to God's faith and miracles in the lives of His people collectively...

Blessings to you all!

Happy Whatever Wednesday.