Every so often, I am struck by a "miracle" that comes into my life completely unexpectedly. I think, like others, I think of miracles as profound, monumental occasions when the unbelievable happens right before our eyes. We call it a miracle when sickness is healed, when something lost is found, when an abrupt change of circumstances occurs for the better with little to no logical or rational explanation. These miraculous moments change us. They inspire us. They makes us think differently, believe differently and at times they will completely alter our attitudes. The funny thing is, they are infrequent and no sooner than we claim ourselves as a "changed person," the rush of the miracle wears off and we often find ourselves back into our pre-miracle state of thinking and believing.
This past week, smack dab in the middle of my workday, I encountered a "miracle" that I can honestly say changed me. It wasn't the type of miracle we all think of when we hear of miracles happening, but the power of its impact on me is undeniable. It was not just an immediate impact, but it's been occupying my mind all week and I feel compelled to unwrap the beauty of the gift of what I call "everyday miracles." These are the miracle messages that come from the most unanticipated and unexpected of places. They are life lessons that we learn from those who we would never guess had something to teach us. These are the profound statements that come from the voice of God through one of His own.
I'm going to age myself, but some of you may remember the song "Mr. Wendal" by Arrested Development.....one of my favs back in high school! I had it on cassette, dubbed from the radio (that was the extent of "media piracy" back in my day) and have since purchased the cd. If you aren't familiar with the song (and I KNOW that those of you who are familiar with it are singing it in your head as you read this), the long and short of this song is the profound impact Mr. Wendal, a bum, has in imparting wisdom on a more "educated" subject. I loved the song at the time it came out in 1992, but I'm not sure how much thought I gave to its message.
Fast forward to 2011, office of "educated" lawyer and enter 17 year old woman with two daughters (2 years old and 4 months old.....sidenote: 2 of the most GORGEOUS children I have ever seen in my life) and everything in her life that I would call anything but miraculous. She grew up in a single-parent home with an absent father and surrounded by men that would come and go. She had her first child at 15. When she became pregnant with her second child, her tenuous relationship with her mother peaked and she was kicked out of the house. I'm going to go ahead and say that if I had been kicked out of my home at the age of 17 a slight freak-out would have ensued. Of all the thoughts in the world, I'm relatively certain that the last thing I would have thought was, "Hmm. I think I will go to the library and see what resources are available for me so that I can have a better life than the one I have." Sound crazy? Well, that's exactly what she did. She went to the library, researched programs, hopped on a bus from Milwaukee to Green Bay, pregnant and with a then one year old in tow and decided that her life was about to take a new and better direction.
I sat SPEECHLESS (and you all know how frequently the phenomena of "speechless" occurs in my life.....uh, never!) as I listened to this woman, a child herself, tell me how she had a decision to make not just about her own life but the life of her two children, one who wasn't even born at the time. Her decision was to give her beautiful girls an example different than the one that had been set for her in her childhood and adolescence. She knew NO ONE in Green Bay and had never been here, but felt that a program at a shelter for teenage women and their children would be a good jump-start to the new life she was about to make for herself. It all sounds good in theory, right?!?! Well, here's the part that blew my mind: This young woman moved here, gave birth to her second daughter, enrolled in and attends high school AND got her CNA certificate while she was attending school, being mom to a young child and an infant!!! She is going to graduate with her class in June and is in the process of enrolling in school for an LPN program and then wants to become an RN.
Maybe it's just me, but listening to her story made me want to hire her as my life coach. She was poised, she had a gentleness that I could only wish to have, she was confident and her interactions with her children were that of a model mother. If you can't tell, I was impressed to say the least! To put it in the simplest of terms, hearing her story and seeing her interact with two little girls who are SO LUCKY to have a mommy who loves them enough to look risk in the face and tackle it without looking back, I became infected by her story!
So, what does all of this have to do with miracles? To some, nothing. To me, everything! This one hour in a conference room was my "Mr. Wendal" moment. I went into the meeting with the thought that I would be "educating" this young woman about the law and I walked out of the meeting knowing that the "education" I provided paled in comparison to the "education" that was provided to me. I walked in with knowledge about the law and I walked out with wisdom about life.....WOW!! Like this "Miss Wendal," we are all faced with choices every single day. We all come to crossroads in our lives. If you're anything like me, I see the fork in the road approaching and I stop, often paralyzed by indecision, I stand motionless, turn around, look back and the freak out of "what to do" begins. What if the approach I took were something different, say a little more like the way my 17 year old "mentor" approached her fork in the road? What if when I saw the fork, I stopped and instead of latching on to paralysis, I looked ahead to where I wanted to be and calmly proceeded on the path that gave me the best chance of getting there notwithstanding the risks of the unknown? Well, I am about to find out because the impact of this sixty minutes of my life is forever impressed upon my mind as one of the greatest lessons learned. Though she may never read this, I am forever grateful to "Miss Wendal" for the everyday miracle she was to me on a day that was otherwise anything but miraculous (by common definition)!
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