Miracles

Miracle: An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God.

I believe in miracles again. Several things happened during the Christmas season that restored this belief. No, holidays with the family was not smooth, everyone did not get along, etc. I did not bring about household, family, city, county, state, national, or world peace. I did not magically lose the weight I wanted to lose, nor did I get any younger.

And I don't know that I really ever stopped believing in miracles, but I had definitely stopped seeing them - if they were happening, I was not aware. I think it goes back to that "inexplicable" part of the definition - everything I do these days for my career involves explaining, theorizing, proving, researching, etc. My eyes were closed to that phenomenon called a "miracle."

Over the Christmas holidays, my church put on a production called "The Christmas Post". This play was based upon a Norman Rockwell painting and was set in the 1940s. That was not the miracle. Everyone had a great time and the message was very positive, and appropriate for these difficult economic times. The play went very smoothly and people were blessed. That was not the miracle.

Here is what you have been waiting for:
Leaders in our Deaf ministry at church - myself recently included, rounding out the Deaf team to a grand total of 3 members - wanted our Deaf member and her family to be able to enjoy the play. Keep in mind please that I am really only a beginner-intermediate level, Karen is intermediate+, and Ms. Davis is a certified interpreter. There were ~ 6 main characters in this play, with other bit parts, and many many songs. And dialogue was interesting - words and phrases we don't even use anymore that are difficult if not impossible to translate to ASL. And we had no opportunities to practice with each other as a group, or during a play practice.

So, you are getting the picture. The entire time we were preparing, individually, we were very concerned that we would not be able to adequately convey the message to our Deaf friend - the jokes, the humor, the plays on words, etc.. We also had no idea how we were going to "play" all of the characters.

And here is the miracle ("finally", I hear you say). Our hands worked, our fingers flew, we don't know how. She laughed at every joke, she cried at the touching ending, she GOT it, and we don't know how. It really shouldn't have happened that way - we didn't have the ability, we didn't have the preparation, etc.

Except we do know how. Miracle: An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God.

More on other miracles later.
Love - Jess