I Believe In Miracles

...There were many contributing factors, but the drinking was a core sinister plot to tear our family apart. I grew up with fear, anger, sorrow, and trepidation resulting from my life at home.

My father never came to see me play one sports game, he never came to one awards ceremony, or church program. He came to my Jr. High and Sr. High graduations, but other than that, he did not participate at all.

But I loved my father dearly. I was Daddy’s girl, and I knew it...

...To say I was heartsick is an understatement. I had been all over the entire camp. If it had fallen off while out there walking, I knew I would never find it. As the day continued I asked everyone in our group to please look and if they found it, to let me know. Everyone kindly said that they would.

And of course I talked to Jesus about it. He knew I was heartsick over losing it. He knew I had searched and searched and searched, retracing as many of my steps as possible. And I asked Him to please help me find it.

It should have been a lost cause. It was a very small necklace in a vast area full of people who had no idea who I was or that I had lost my prized possession...

...There is much talk today about spiritual intelligence. When I heard Kris Valloton first speak about this, I thought, “I want that!” But then, almost as quickly I heard God say, “Haven’t I always given you that?”

I began to think about that and have remembered many times that I just knew something without there being anyway that I could have known it in the natural. My very first memory of such an occurrence was when I was about 10 or 12...

... Christmas Eve of 1967 I received the first outright miracle that I remember. I was nine years old.

I lived on a farm in western Oklahoma in a tiny frame house of about 700 square feet. It had two bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, and a small added on utility and bathroom, equally tiny.

Being an only child in a very dysfunctional home, I often felt isolated. My father was an alcoholic, and he and my mother fought continually. It provided, at best, a very tense home life. My mother’s distress over issues with my father, our poverty, and life in general caused her to be unhappy and short-tempered...