The little miracles

My mom used to always tell me a joke, it went something like this:

    Once there was a great flood and there was one man who was trapped on a tree. Before the waters got too high some people on the shore came close to the tree with a ladder and said “Hey! Let us help you down so that you can escape!” To which the man responded “No, thank you, but the Lord will save me”. Pretty soon the waters had risen even higher, and the man was no longer able to get help from people on the shore. But a little while later, some people in a boat came to him, and said “Hey! Let us help you get into the boat!” To which once again the man responded “no, thank you, but the Lord will save me”. Even later when the waters had risen up even higher, a plane came and the people in it said to the man “Hey! Let us help you to the plane so you can get away!”. And once more the man responded “No, thank you, but the Lord will save me”. Soon after that the waters went all the way up, and the man drowned. When he got to heaven, he said to God, “God, why did you not save me from the flood?”. God’s response? “Well I sent you the ladder, the boat, and the plane!”

Moral of the story? God sends us help in many different forms, just because it does not seem like it is divine, does not mean it’s not from God. God is always there helping us, sometimes we’re just too blind to see it. My mom always told me this joke after I said to her “I don’t need other people, I’ve got God. It’s okay if it’s just me and Him.” She told me that joke to remind me that prayer and miracles are not the only way God comforts us. Sometimes all He does is send you that one person whose hug makes your day brighter. I wonder how often God sends me someone to help me and I turn away from them thinking “No, thank you, but the Lord will save me from my pain”, and He’s standing there shaking his head, just thinking, “Jenny, I just tried to. I can only help you if you accept my help.” Maybe I just need to look harder.

And just backtracking a bit, when I said “prayer and miracles are not the only way God comforts us”, I kind of want to change that statement. Because my friends are miracles. When one person can make you smile and laugh when all you want to do is cry and give up, I think that’s a miracle. And I have a few friends who do that all the time. So let me rephrase that. Prayer is not the only way God comforts us. He gives us little miracles every day to comfort us, it’s just a matter of opening our eyes to see what he’s sending us.