Two advent miracles

           I have always believed in miracles. Have I shared as many with others? Probably no as I have never been confident that others would understand how I see something as a miracle. And I hate being mocked. Not any more. The reason is we live in a world where I see more and more people hate each other. Even to the point of persecuting the very fragile amongst us. And the rest live in fear that they will have to deal with it at their door soon. And hence in this kind of our situation, we have no time to look at little beautiful things that happen to us and celebrate them and share them with others. And life becomes meaningless and insecure each day. Being aware of a miracle that may happen every other week, if not every other day is very important. And that is why I want to share this with as many as I can. Because there are two very important facets of our lives that money can’t ever buy. Everlasting peace and love.

          I became aware of two miracles just this past week. On Dec 1^st, I was getting my daughter Claire home from school and our conversation went to her Christmas pageant practice. It was just a couple of weeks away  and I was eager to know how it was progressing. She announced that the characters for Mother Mary and St. Joseph had been finalized. I was eager to know if she was going to be Mother Mary, but it wasn’t the case. I knew that Claire wanted to be Mother Mary and so I told her that every other character of the nativity scene, be it the animals, the angels or the shepherds were all important. Then I told her that she still will have other opportunities to be Mother Mary and she should keep her interest open and go for it when the opportunity knocks. I knew in my heart that it may actually not be the case, but I felt it important to console her. And silently prayed to Mother Mary and Jesus to provide for it. That Saturday, we were going for the monthly prayer meeting of the OITS group. Although the group meets every month and is very vibrant, we could only make it to December as we could not travel far with the kids and our own schedules. As we were driving, our conversation came to the kids pageant that was generally part of the meeting in December and I told Claire to take an active part. I didn’t want to raise expectations, but I knew she was too shy to play Mother Mary and I thought she would not play it herself even if it was offered to her. Anyways, I had no role in deciding those aspects. But, again, in my heart I said a prayer to Mother Mary and Jesus asking them to give her the strength to play that role if it came to her. We were there at the meeting and Claire was an active participant singing away and  saying her prayers. And I was deep in prayer too with little Noah in tow. And then the time came for kids to go inside and prepare their short skit as the elders reflected on the gospel. Claire passed by me happily and I glanced at her and wished her well. And continued with my reflections. A few minutes passed by and somebody told that the kids were ready and coming in for the skit. As I completed the reflection, I just gazed towards the door where the kids would be coming in. And at this point, I had forgotten all about Claire playing Mother Mary or angel or shepherd. There were plenty of children there and I would have been fine with anybody playing those roles. They would all be doing it so well. And then something caught my eye that left me dumbfounded. I saw that beautiful little shy girl smiling away and she had this beautiful while veil and a blue flowing dress. Yes, she was playing Mother Mary and she marched right by me and for the next few minutes, even though shy, played the role to her best in front of so many people, many of whom she didn’t know. And as I kept applauding her and others, I had to acknowledge what had happened. A beautiful advent miracle.  Here was my shy little girl who had always wanted to be Princess Elsa from Frozen for the past 2 yrs who had  for once wanted to be Mother Mary. Here were mom and dad who had silently prayed for it, hoping against hope. And it had happened more beautiful than we would ever have expected. And our shy little girl who would generally freeze when she was in front of unknown people had essayed her role so beautifully.

               Well, if one miracle a season is a beautiful thing and I was basking in it, tuesday came and it was a day of Immaculate conception of Mary, a day of obligation. Claire was at home and there were a lot of things to do. Claire had a dentist appointment and we had grocery shopping to do and then Claire had to go swimming. So, going to mass became a challenge and kept being pushed to late evening. And everything started to go wrong. First, we decided that Claire and I would go to Church as mom worked from home taking care of Noah. But, mom got an emergency call and could not get her work computer going. So, she had to go to office and we had to cancel going to mass. And I always freak out when things change abruptly. As I hurried to drop mom to work, I was totally stressed and told mom that we would not think about church until evening. After dropping her, as we were coming home and I was still stressed and trying to salvage our plans for the day. Suddenly, I realized I was about to be in an accident. A truck almost hit me coming in from nowhere. I swerved and saved ourselves. And decided to get calm as I was driving with 2 kids. We came home and had our breakfast, talked home in India and then went to pick up mommy to go to the dental appointment for Claire. Again an accident almost happened as a truck shifted lane without any indication and again I had to be alert. Now, I was waiting for the third one. As we reached the doctor, I was happy everything was in one piece. But, then another crazy thing happened. Our appointment was not for that day. We had got everything wrong. I was party to the confusion too because I had not checked the time and date too. So, given that everything was going wrong, I sat down in the car waiting and decided to look at masstimes.org. And then I found a mass we could all go to at noon. As we drove, I reflected on what had just happened. After the mass, all my stress had gone. And I shared the miracle that had just happened with my family. Since morning we had tried two things. We were either going to church not as one family but splitting up. And our other plan was to go after all our errands were run. But, GOD had a plan for us. He kept alerting us through those little signs to go as a family to mass first.

Sitting back at home, I realized how beautiful it felt to realize that we were part of two miracles. And here I am waiting for more to happen as I am aware of GOD’s presence every moment leading us. And I am hoping after reading this each one of you would also look forward to GOD’s leading in your life and most importantly share it. Everlasting peace and love to all.