Miracle on 34th Street

Last Monday I asked for a miracle and last Monday I received one. A week ago I sent out a desperate plea for prayers for my son Peter and your response was overwhelming. As amazing as you have been, that wasn’t the miracle. The neurosurgeon feels very good about having removed the entire brain tumor and as hopeful as that is, it’s also not my miracle. At some point after I left Peter and his mom at the hospital on Saturday, the doctors decided they needed to intubate and sedate him to prepare him for Monday’s surgery. As I put his sisters to bed on Sunday night, one of them asked me to be sure and tell Peter how much they loved him. It hit me like a ton of bricks that I didn’t do that before they sedated him. I never told Peter how much I loved him or how much God loved him. As I drove to the hospital on Monday morning in the dark, cold rain, it was all I could think about and I could barely breathe. What if he didn’t know? What if I never got to tell him? As I hurried to his room knowing that there were only a few minutes before they would wheel him down, I found him holding his mom’s hands, his beautiful blue eyes wide open. Tricia asked him if we could pray and he nodded. Despite his sedation, he blessed himself and folded his hands perfectly. As we prayed, Tricia began to cry and Peter stretched his little body and placed his hand on her forehead. I leaned in and told him all those things I was terrified I wouldn’t get to say and he put his hand on my forehead and my shoulder. Then he blessed himself again. As the nurse announced she would be taking him down, Tricia tears got a little harder. Peter made a crying motion with his hands and then wagged his finger, "no, no." Both our tears stopped and we walked alongside him to the operating room.

Christmas came on Monday. If Peter never gives me another gift, he will have already given me the world with that moment of grace. He gave me the peace that only comes from Emmanuel, "God with us." That moment confirmed for me what I was desperate for Peter to know but clearly what I needed to remember myself, that Christ comes no matter what you do or how ready you are. That Christ comes in the dark, in the cold, in the sterile, strange, and scary places we don’t ever imagine we could end up. Christ comes to us through the fragile and the weak of body but not of soul. Christ chooses to come to us through a child. I asked for a miracle on Monday and I was given a miracle that same day. It’s a miracle you get too. Peter and our family have a long road ahead but it is a road we can walk because Emmanuel. Thank you for loving our family. Especially this week, let’s be sure that others know that we believe in miracles.