Shadrach once told me the story of how he and his mother were divinely protected while walking home from another village. They were singing as they walked along which is something I have come to know is common for the Liberian people. Shadrach often sang as he worked while helping me in our vegetable garden at my home. Both he and his mother have beautiful voices. I could visualize them doing this together.
Shadrach recounted that as they walked along the dirt road, they were not aware that they were being watched. A group of soldiers lay in wait to kill them as they returned home. However, they chose not to harm them because of the large crowd of people surrounding them, all singing together. Shadrach was made aware of this at a much later time when one of the soldiers told him this account. He told the man that he and his mother had been alone but the man insisted otherwise. Unaware, they had been accompanied by a band of singing angels!
Shadrach’s story in “Letters Out of Africa” is full of similar miraculous events. When looking back it is obvious that Shadrach has been divinely protected. Do we see the miracles all around us? Or is it only in retrospect that we see the hand of God on our lives?
I have experienced miracles in my practice of medicine that are unexplainable on a scientific basis many times. The most dramatic involved a patient of mine many years ago who suffered a massive stroke and had been comatose on a ventilator for 2 weeks. Her mother was her only next of kin and she knew that she would not want to be kept alive like this. The MRI of her brain revealed that over half of her brain had been destroyed by the stroke. Together with her team of doctors, we made the decision to turn off the ventilator so she could die in peace. On the way to the hospital the morning we planned to turn all life support off, I prayed that God would take my patient or heal her. My fear was that she would survive but be in a vegetative state. This would have devestated her mother.
Well everything was turned off and my patient was transfered out of ICU to a regular room to die. But she didn’t die. The first day she began to wake up. On the second day she started to talk and by the third day she wanted something to eat. Her mother looked at me on that third day and said, “You and I both know this is a miracle.” I could not disagree. I felt like I was walking on holy ground when I was in her room. She recovered to go home to her mother and with much physical therapy and speech therapy has been able to function only walking with a cane.
What miracles have you seen? Do you expect miracles or do you dismiss them as the other doctors taking care of my patient did? My patient’s repeat MRI showed a nearly healed brain! How do you explain that? I can’t.
Expect miracles. Look for them in your everyday life and you’ll see the hand of God at work. Please tell me about your own personal miracles in the “Stories from Readers” page.
