Miracles Happen To Everyone, Sometimes On A Daily Basis

Sometimes miracles are so subtle we might not even recognize them as such. Here is one incident that may or may not have been a miracle for my family, but it certainly helped an elderly woman a great deal. And it all started with a rude clerk at a pizza buffet.

There is a national chain pizza buffet near us. The establishment has good food at reasonable prices, and it's fast. You pay at the cash register when you walk in and then you're all set to chow down as much as you want.

It's usually an enjoyable experience, one that my husband and I enjoy. Only a few evenings ago, not so much. The clerk at the cash register looked at us as we walked up, ready to pay. Then the "to go" phone beside her rang. Totally ignoring us, she answered the phone and took this huge to go order, spending an inordinate amount of time going over and over the items desired to be sure she got this customer's phone order correct.

In the meantime, it would have taken her maybe two minutes to take our money and we could have been happily on our way. That didn't happen.

Still, we patiently waited, thinking maybe they were shorthanded. She would be off the phone eventually and could attend to us then. Well, she did get off the phone eventually. However, it immediately rang again and she snatched it up anew, taking yet another long to go order.

"This is stupid," I said, "Let's go somewhere else."

"I'm right behind you," my husband agreed, and we were out the door before the clerk could hang up the "to go" phone a second time.

We drove up the road instead to a small cafe where we sometimes eat breakfast. The place wasn't crowded. That's because the food there isn't that great. Then again it's not that bad either, and it's cheap. And the people who take your order are nice. Plus it was quiet, no screaming or crying kids in the background (as had been the case at the pizza buffet).

At this place, too, you go first to the cash register to place your order before sitting down at a nearby table. There was no one ordering other than us and an elderly couple nearby. The couple, a man and woman who looked weak and frail and probably in their mid-80's or so, were busy scanning the large menu board above our heads and told us to go ahead, that they were still making up their minds. So they ended up standing beside us while we placed our orders.

I noticed the woman, small and a bit hunched over in the shoulders, was leaning on a sturdy cane. Her hand was shaking.

I'm still not sure what happened or why it happened. No one was near the elderly couple other than my husband and myself. And we weren't close enough to touch them.

All of a sudden the woman's cane fell from her hand and she started to fall, right toward that hard hard floor.

In an instant, even while concentrating on giving his order, my husband, almost as if by some inner reflex, stepped over and literally caught the woman before she could suffer any physical injury (and given how frail she looked chances are had she fallen she might have been badly hurt.)

The woman, with tears in her eyes, profusely thanked my spouse as he gently put her upright anew and restored her cane to its rightful place. The elderly husband, also trying to blink back tears, wrung my husband's hand in appreciation

"You don't know what you've done," the elderly man said, his voice cracking slightly. "She has had two hip replacements over the last two years, the second one was from an unexpected fall in a parking lot. Not only has it been difficult for her, regaining her health, but some medical bills weren't covered and the extra payments we had to come up with for some of her prescription drugs have been hard to handle. She's finally back on her feet to where we can enjoy getting out a bit now and we're just starting to get there as well financially at last, at least we now have enough to live on. If you hadn't caught her just now, chances are we would have been right back to square one."

"No problem," my husband said kindly. "I'm just thankful I was here to help when you needed it.".

I realized in that moment exactly how profound his words were. What if he hadn't been there at the right time? What if the pizza buffet clerk hadn't been so rude? Even with her first display of bad behavior, that seemed intentional, we were willing to forgive and forget and still eat at the buffet, one of our favorite places. What if that to go phone hadn't rung again when it did, making us decide then and there to stop putting up with that silly clerk? What if we had decided to go elsewhere, other than the small cafe, to eat? However, we both thought of that cafe at the same time, neither one of us even considered going anywhere else after leaving the pizza buffet.

If all that hadn't happened, who would have been there to catch the poor woman, who had already been through so much already?

See? See how all those seemingly ordinary events came together? That's a miracle. All you have to do is think about it, really think about it, to recognize all the blessings that took place there.

Now, instead of being mad at that ridiculous pizza buffet clerk, I'm thankful for her idiotic behavior. She was a blessing. She will never know she was a blessing, but thanks to her rudeness she was.

Yet, until my husband said those words, "that he was happy to be there in time to help," even I didn't realize a miracle had taken place.

Miracles, large and small, are all around all of us, usually every day.

All we have to do is to look for them, think abou tthem, accept them and feel gratitude for them.

So take a moment now to think about today, yesterday, last week. Don't just focus on big disasters or everyday irritants. Instead, think, really think, about all the miraculous things that have happened to you lately.

Doing so makes you feel better, which creates a positive energy field around you, which can only lead to better things and possibly even more of those wonderous small miracles, or even large ones, in your life. Miracles happen to all of us, sometimes on a daily basis. Keep an eye out for them.. Expect them.