“You are the God who performs miracles.” Psalm 77:14
An article in the May issue of Guideposts magazine caught my eye the other day, a story about a single mother named Jocelynn who had lost everything – her marriage, home, job, car, and even her family – due to her addiction to drugs. Over the course of five years she had been arrested sixteen times for various offences from drug possession to possession of stolen property to credit card fraud. Several of those arrests were made by the same police officer, Officer Terrell Potter. Finally, in 2012 after spending several months behind bars, Jocelynn had hit rock bottom, sought help, entered rehab and got herself clean, after which she committed her life to helping other addicts find sobriety, particularly women. She has since helped hundreds recover from addiction. But that’s not all. One day she learned that Officer Potter who had arrested her numerous times was in need of a kidney. You guessed it, Jocelynn was a perfect match, and today Terrell Potter is alive and healthy thanks to the woman he had hauled off in handcuffs many times. After reading that article I thought, only God could perform such a miracle.
Near our home is a gorgeous trail that leads back into some woods along a series of small lakes where for the second spring in a row a pair of migratory geese have nested in the same spot to hatch their eggs. Sure enough, several days ago we spotted the two geese swimming in the pond with three babies in tow. Over the decades and centuries science has discovered much about the process of reproduction and how cells come together to grow into new life. Yet, I recall how awed I was when my own children were born, and maybe even more so the births of my grandchildren, how those tiny cells formed into a human being who talks and thinks and laughs and cries. Anytime I witness new life I cannot help but marvel that only God could perform such a miracle.
Some dispute the existence of miracles, that if something cannot be explained through science and logic that it simply isn’t so; that is, if it is too good to be true it must not be true. Even the stories above can be validated a great deal by science. What it cannot explain is the redemption of Jocelynn and the subsequent bond between she and Officer Potter. Nor can it explain the awe we experience when we witness new life. Yes, science may be able to explain much about the mysteries of Creation, but it cannot explain miracles. For as the Psalmist says, “You are the God who performs miracles.”