Just another ordinary miracle...

My niece called me last night and we talked for quite some time.  Her parents are divorced and she spends the weekdays with her dad and the weekends with my sister.  She's been taught by both of them that God is man-made, that people who believe in Him are delusional and hang on to false hope.  She's been weighed down with many questions and she feels as if she's in a whirlwind of opinions.  Her mind has been spinning and she's not sure what to believe.  I encouraged her to read Joseph Smith's History, and to read it several times.  I shared with her my deep love and appreciation for Joseph Smith, that he had questions like her, and that I have no doubt He was a true prophet.

We talked at length about God and His reality.  I explained to her that we don't have to understand or have all of the answers to every single detail to know very clearly that something is real.  I asked her if she could tell me about the processes each cell, synapse, blood vessel, nerve ending, and micro-organism in her body and what they were undergoing in order for her to have the ability to be talking to me at that moment.  She admitted that she couldn't and noted that even the most knowledgeable scientists couldn't with perfect understanding... yet our communication with each other was undeniable and very real.

My conversation with my niece was wonderful.  The Spirit was felt and we wept as testimonies were born.  She breathed a sigh of relief.  I was glad that she felt better and her faith had been renewed.

Just about two weeks ago I had a similar conversation with another young women as I sat at her bedside. She too has had a lot of questions about God and life in general. I suppose there are times in all of our lives where we may wonder about the reality of heaven or if God hears our prayers.  It can be especially draining to someone's faith when they have prayed for certain miracles to happen and those specific miracles never do end up happening.  They may begin to feel that God has abandoned them all together or that He doesn't really care.

I bore testimony to her too about the reality of God and how we don't have to have all the answers to know without a doubt that something is real.  I testified too that some miracles come in different ways than what we want but they are happening around us all the time.  I explained that too often we think of miracles as a "healing of something" that we lose sight of the ordinary everyday miracles taking place inside and outside of us all the time, how our heart beats, eyes see, lungs breathe and nerves feel without us even thinking about it.  We discussed a little about the scripture in Alma 30:44

This past Sunday, a gentleman spoke about the very same thing and said, "Often, when we think of miracles, we immediately picture the blind being healed so they can see or the deaf being healed so they can hear....but we don't think about all of the millions of people that could already see and hear in the first place.  Isn't that a miracle?!"  As he said that, I thought of my conversation at the bedside of this young woman a week before and I smiled.  I love it when thoughts, testimonies, and witnesses coincide like that!

A couple of days ago, I found this video and shared it with my friend.  She hasn't responded to it but I hope it serves as another witness of what I was trying to convey to her that afternoon.

God is real, I know it!  He is our loving Father in Heaven who hears and answers every prayer.  All things testify of Him.  My heart is full of gratitude for the every-day ordinary miracles!  Life is truly amazing, what an unspeakable joy I feel for the creations and testimonies I see of Him everyday!

-Alicia

"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