How Miracles Are Created

As I worked on this beautiful December day, it’s just one of those days that I keep wanting to cry (good tears mostly). My heart is so full of gratitude that it’s causing my eyes to overflow with ‘liquid.’

My day started out with watching the sun rise over the snow-capped Wasatch Mountains as I drove to take my darling nephew and his mom to the airport. My nephew whom I lovingly refer to as “Lil’ Zach” is as precious as can be. I’m constantly reminded of how fragile life is and how as a person with a purpose on this planet, it’s up to me to make sure that Lil’ Zach knows that there is love in the world and he feels it every moment at his very core.I keep thinking about everything in my life that has aligned so perfectly that details surpass my expectations.

I will be honest, 2009 has been a challenging year full of growth, learning and more learning. One of the biggest things I have learned is how important it is to keep my perspective focused on the highest good amidst what appears to be a challenge. Persistency pays off.

How perfect for me right? Because I passionately teach the concept that an Illuminated Woman is anyone who believes in the possibilities more than the circumstances. That is how we create miracles.

Today, a friend forwarded me and email and I am so glad a read it because it reminded me of when I received a similar miracle when I was a child. I’m inspired again as I ponder how “random acts of kindness” delivered a porch full of presents on my porch during the holidays making it possible that my family had a Christmas that year so many years ago.

Here is the email from my friend (thank you and my credit goes to the original author):

“In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries.

Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it.

I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress, loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town.

No luck.

The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince who ever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job.

Still no luck.

The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning.

She paid 65 cents an hour, and I could start that night. I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal. That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job.. And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money– fully half of what I averaged every night.

As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home.

One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires.

Had angels taken up residence in Indiana ? I wondered. I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn’t enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning.

Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair. On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. There were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up.

When it was time for me to go home at seven o’clock on Christmas morning, to my amazement, my old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver’s side door, crawled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans.

Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes. There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.

As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning. Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.”

I remember the day like yesterday when I was home with my brother and mom and it was almost Christmas. I was probably about six and my brother was 4. I remember feeling my mother worry. She didn’t say anything but being quite empathic and intuitive, especially as a child, I picked up on that energy and wondered what it was about. I sensed it was about Christmas was coming and I knew we didn’t have a lot. I wasn’t worried because my mother was magical and she always seemed to create something out of what appeared to be nothing.

We had the nightly routine of sitting on the couch and my brother and I were dressed in my dad’s over sized t-shirts that served as our pajamas (it was our favorite PJ attire) and read stories. The Night Before Christmas was my favorite and I practically had it memorized. As we sat there that night, there was a knock on the door and I remember my mother looking puzzled, almost worried. Who would be stopping by at that time of night?

When we opened the door I could barely believe the site. Our porch was FULL of boxes arranged around a Christmas tree. I looked at my mom as if to ask permission to see what was inside the boxes.

I don’t remember all of the conversation but just remember the tears stream down my mother’s face while we opened the boxes full of food, gifts and clothing. There were two clown dolls I particularly remember. One was green with purple with green polka dots and the other was green with purple polka dots. I thought they were so cute with the bright orange yarn hair. My brother and played with those all night and we had them for years to come.

I know what it feels like to be the recipient of anonymous kindness. That year we had a Christmas. I’m positive that my mother never stopped praying for a way to make it happen. When my dad got home that morning from the graveyard shift, I’m sure he thanked who ever created that miracle for us that year.

This reminds me that just when we think we can’t go on, that it’s too hard, or that it won’t work out, never stop believing. It is that pivotal moment that we step beyond the challenge and embrace a new possibility that there is actual space in our life for the possibility to be realized and manifested into our life. Belief, intention and action is what makes things happen. Just as the women who packed her kids in the car to find a job, when we are unstoppable for our dreams, our dreams meet us at least half way in ways we never expect.

Keep believing. And remember that often times YOU are the answer to someone’s prayer. Your smile. Your kind hand in spite of tension. Your loving tone in the face of anger. Your act of kindness that no one sees or acknowledges. You are the difference for someone.

To those earth angels who left Christmas on our porch over 25 years ago, thank you. Thank you for answering the call to show love. Thank you for reminding us to believe in the possibilities.