See The Miracles In Front Of You

In the book of Genesis, when Abraham and Sarah were told by divine messengers that they were going to have a child in their old age, Sarah laughed at the prospect.  I am sure she thought that her future couldn't possibly include such a miracle.  

Only it did.  

I've been thinking this morning about Sarah's laughter, and why that story has always resonated with me.  

I had the chance to spend the day with my middle son yesterday as we drove down to San Antonio to catch a Metallica concert.  He just turned thirteen.  It feels as though I blinked and he grew up, right in front of me. 

At the concert, we were sitting next to a young couple who looked to be about eighteen or nineteen years old.  If I squinted my eyes I could imagine that young couple as my wife and I in similar concerts over thirty years ago.  

My poor wife---I dragged her to so many rock shows back when we were kids.  

If a divine messenger had walked up to nineteen year-old Leon and Merideth at a rock show and told us that one day I would take our thirteen year old son to see Metallica while Merideth stayed at home to make sure our six year-old could get to baseball camp the next day, we wouldn't have believed it. 

Maybe we would have even laughed. 

The road from 19 until now has had more than a few twists and turns. Some of the bad bends in the road were our fault. Almost all of the worst ones weren't.  And the future that God had in store for us feels so miraculous now that I am in it, looking back.  

It makes me think that there are probably so many miraculous and incredible things in our lives that we take for granted.  We feel like they just happened, or we got there on our own, perhaps.  Maybe we even feel like it was all up to us. 

But if we are being honest, we have to admit that there's got to be more to these miraculous outcomes than just "happenstance."  

May you look for the incredible, and the unbelievable today in your everyday life.  Find the miracles you would have never dreamed would come to pass, and laugh---laugh with joy and be grateful to God for God's guidance and grace.  

And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.