Miracles - Setting the Standard

Recently, a class I was taking asked us to poll our friends with this question:
“What is the most unexpected, miraculous thing you have ever experienced?”
The point of the exercise was to help us to see that miracles really do happen everyday. And they are much more frequent than we imagine. True, indeed.

Here are some of the answers I received:

• Looking from a boat at snow capped mountain rising up out of the ocean
• Conceiving and having twins at age 44
• Watching my hole-in-one go into the cup
• Meeting my wife – I thought this would never happen to me
• The adoption process -- celebrating my daughter’s culture made motherhood extra special
• Falling in love, love at first sight
• Being able to look down on a rainbow
• The first five years of my brother’s life
• The love I have for my children
• Having a boy after having 4 girls

Very diverse, yes. And very attainable too, I would say. My mentor used to say, “Perhaps you should lower your standards on miracles.” In other words, we tend to think certain things we want or need are unattainable when, in reality, they happen everyday. It’s only in our own thought process that we decide they are unattainable. If I saw more things as miracles, maybe more things would seem possible to me.

My answer, by the way, was: bonding with my adopted son instantly and growing to not only deeply love him, but motherhood as well – far more than I had imagined. That’s my answer to the “most” but there are many unexpected and miraculous things around me everyday, if I will only look at them. The important thing to remember is to look for them! What a miracle that I can have a Spanish class over Skype with my Guatemalan teacher and, with web cam, I can see him too. Miracle! My son, with two languages, was slow to start speaking. 4 months before his third birthday he tests like a 3 year old. Miracle! Last Thursday, I celebrated 24 years without a drink or a drug. Miracle! A butterfly flew over to me yesterday and flapped its elegant, large, black wings in front of my face for a moment. Miracle!

And how delicious it feels to think this way all day! It’s so much better than trying to plan out what is going to happen and how I can affect that. When I am looking for miracles…miracles happen. The trick is to look for the miracles that are already happening around you. That’s what opens the door for the new miracles to come. Like attracts like, remember.

So lower your standards and let the miracles begin!