Miracles

A friend e-mailed us this story this morning:

Sup guys,. . .

I just had an experience that will probably take me quite a while to digest, but now that it’s over and I’ve had the chance to chew on it a bit, my thoughts have wandered to you three. For some reason, I thought you might appreciate this:

I saw a guy stand up today.

[My wife and daughter] were dancing in the garage when I started to mow, so I fully expected to see them dancing when I came around to the front, but they weren’t. They were just standing there along with my neighbor Marge and her husband Ben.

Ben was standing in my garage.

He’s a bit of a staple in our neighborhood; you would see him out on his pseudo-constitutionals now and then. Most folks know who he and Marge are and help them out whenever they can. You see, Ben was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gherig’s disease) in 1995. By 2005 he couldn’t move a muscle. He’s been confined to a wheel chair for over a decade and his doctors told him nearly a decade ago that his death was imminent.

And yet, when I walked around the side of my house, there was Ben, standing there in all of God’s glory.

It was simultaneously the most under and overwhelming thing I have ever experienced. Here was the most ordinary thing that could ever happen and it was a straight-up miracle. I have never stood face-to-face with a miracle before and, probably like most Christians, doubted those that I heard others profess to have witnessed or experienced.

He has a feeding tube, but he hasn’t used it in over six months.

The last time I talked to Ben I could only understand about half of what he said. His speech is still slow, but I had no trouble understanding anything he was saying.

His knees hurt a bit when he stands but that’s because his muscles have atrophied so that they don’t have the strength (yet!) to keep him up for too long.

He’s pretty sure that his mind is “re-writing its pathways.” He’s a Vietnam vet who is over sixty years old and his mind is being renewed – literally. . .

Ben loves the Lord and regularly attends my dad’s church. I don’t know why, seemingly, God acts in one instance and not in another, but for all that you have gone through in the last eight months, God is clearly up to something on your behalf. You have been in our prayers (hearing Grace ask to and pray for Annabelle has been such a blessing), and I can only hope that knowing that God is still moving in the lives of his children will help provide you a little solace.

Thank you!