Have you experienced or seen a major miracle?

The Lord has granted me so many outright miracles in my life that it just amazes me. Then of course there's His "regular" miracles that we see all the time, such as the miracle of a new infant when they're born, or the miracles in nature, etc. But the miracles I'm talking about here are the kind that can't be explained by any natural means; the kind where God has stepped in and intervened in your life or someone elses life in an obviously supernatural way. To me, it seems like the better I know Him the more often He does that. I thought it would be really encouraging for us if we shared some of those miracles with each other here. I know we're all going through hard times, and it helps strengthen us to carry on, when we remember what God has done for us in the past. 

 There is one miracle I don't think I've told before that happened to me when I was just a baby a few months old. Of course I don't remember it, but my mother told me about it several times. That in itself is a miracle since she spent her life angry at God and denying His existence for the most part. She told me that I had gotten sick and the doctor had done xrays and found a mass or tumor in my abdomen. Surgery was scheduled for the next day to remove it. I don't recall what she said the mass was...I think they didn't know for sure yet. I can only imagine now how she must have felt...her only child, just a few months old, with what she said was a very large mass in my abdomen and having to have surgery. This was back in 1956 so surgery was still considered very dangerous. I'm sure she was just terrified and in fact, she told me she was. Scared enough that she broke down and got on her knees and prayed to the God she hated for me. She said she laid her hand on my tummy and prayed all night for me kneeling next to me as I slept. The next day they did another xray before surgery at my mother's insistence and much to her total amazement and the doctors too, the mass was completely gone. She said that if the doctors didn't have the xray from the day before right there next to it, they wouldn't have believed it had ever been there! According to my mother, I also no longer had any of the symptoms I'd had from it before. So of course I was pronounced healthy and sent home with my mother. Why that didn't convince her of God's love for her, I don't know. But it was certainly a miracle as far as the doctors and my parents were concerned, and back then doctors weren't afraid to admit when they saw a miracle happen. 

I deleted the part about my mother that she also used to tell me that she was sure that the reason she was born and her whole purpose in life was simply to have me and raise me. 

 I could never really figure out why my mom hated God so much. A lot of times when she talked about it at all, which wasn't often, it seemed like her anger was mainly at the RCC and not really God at all. Then after the RCC, her anger seemed to be directed at the bible. I know she felt no one could really understand it. When she gave in and bought me my first bible when I was 11, it was a "children's bible." I devoured every page in it, since it was all I had, but really wanted a real bible and continued asking for one. She finally became exasperated with me and told me that she'd buy one for me when I could understand the children's one. I told her I already did and of course she didn't believe me. She flipped through it and picked out stories and asked me to explain them to her then and I did. To me, the meaning of the stories and what happened in them were just as obvious as any Dr Seuss book When she first started asking me questions, she was kind of antagonistic, but when she saw that I really did understand what I was reading, she became more curious then antagonistic. After that though, she only asked me about a few more. I got my real bible shortly after that though and began devouring it the same way.

A few months later she asked me if I really understood what was in the Bible, and again I told her that I really did, because I really thought I did. She asked me to explain several things to her and I did, but her last question, I felt I understood it, but I had a very hard time explaining it to her and I felt like I had failed. She asked me to explain what or who the Holy Ghost was. She never indicated that I hadn't explained it well enough or anything like that, but I felt that I hadn't.

Growing up, she encouraged me to sin in many ways because she disagreed that those things were sins. I never preached at her though, never condemned her or anything like that. I felt it was my job to simply answer questions when she asked them and try to live the way God said to. But I'd get into trouble when she'd tell me to do something that God said not to and had a lot of problems trying to work out for myself what I was supposed to do in cases like that since God said we're supposed to honor and obey our parents. By the time I was 16, I knew my bible like the back of my hand and had memorized a great deal of it. But my understanding wasn't right about sin. I didn't understand that Jesus had covered all my sins at that time. Mainly because I was teaching myself and had no one to help me.

But, I've gotta give her credit for one thing. She never tried to stop me from going to church, although she told me I'd have to get my own ride as she wanted to sleep in on Sundays. That wasn't hard to do though. And whenever I was being honored in some way at church, she always came to watch, but those were the only times she'd come. She never tried to get me to stop reading my bible or Christian books or anything like that. And she never put me down for any of it. Oh, she'd try and get me interested in "other things" but she never directly forbade me from going to church or studying my bible etc. The only time she in any way did something like that was when I wanted to go to Moody Bible college. She had told me she'd pay for my college education since I was a straight A student, but when I told her where I wanted to go, she said there was no way she'd ever spend a penny to send me there. I knew she desperately wanted me to go to college though, so I rebelled by simply saying, "fine, then I won't go to any college at all" and I didn't. I think she thought she'd get me to go after a year or so, and who knows, maybe she'd have even given in and let me go to Moody; but I'll never know because within a year she was quite sick with cancer and died another year later.

I've always believed she went to Hell, but several years ago now, the Lord told me not to be so certain, which really surprised me. He told me that I didn't know what had happened in my mothers heart or what she'd been thinking even the hours before she died, and that time was no problem for Him, because He could spend what for us was just a few minutes, and make it last for hours or months if need be for Him and her. I thought at first it was just wishful thinking on my part, but I'm sure now, it was the Lord who told me that. It may be wishful thinking that just maybe she'll be waiting for me in heaven, and I refuse to hold onto that wish very tightly. Instead I hold it loosely, knowing that if there was any possible way for the Lord to save her, that He would have done so, and she will be there; but that if she isn't there, it's not His fault and I wouldn't blame Him for a second if she's not. I felt very guilty for a long time, thinking that she was in hell because I hadn't done my job well enough. But the Lord let me know that simply wasn't true. That He never sends just one person, and a child at that, to tell someone about His Son, and that He really doesn't need anyone to tell others the Truth because He's perfectly capable of telling them Himself if need be. So, if she is in Hell, it's only because of her own choosing and is no fault of mine.

But, I've gotta say, if she is in heaven, that would be one fantastic miracle and I would rejoice and praise Him forever for it!