Conversations

Last week, some friends and I were running at Audubon Park. I noticed a group of ladies getting ready to run while I was waiting for my group. They were getting out of their Lexuses and SUVs and we actually finished running at the same time that they did. While walking back to our cars, Phyllis and I overheard them talking about their mileage and we started a conversation with them about marathon training because we had both done 9 miles that day. Phyllis told them I was training for a marathon in December, and one of them looked at me and asked, "Oh, are you doing Vancouver?" I smiled and said, "Um, no, Baton Rouge." Oh, the life of the wealthy.  But they were very nice women, and they were very encouraging to me about running the marathon. I'm sure I'll see them at more races in the area, but probably not in Vancouver.

This week in C.S. Lewis, we were talking about Miracles. Just when I think I'm comfortable with my patterns of thinking, someone, usually the professor, will say something that blows what I think out of the water. Dr. Stewart asked if we consider too many things that happen in life to be miracles. I think I have. So often we define miracles as God's intervention in the world maybe because we see God intervening as doing something that would change the way the world works. A.K.A. would interfere with the laws of nature. But God is always at work. So much of what happens in the world, and the transformation that takes place in my own life is of his doing. There have been many times where I've said, "This will not happen unless God does it." And when it actually did happen, I was surprised and I thought it was a miracle. I guess because I didn't expect God to work in that way.

But maybe, all along, God "interfering" with us and with our lives is a so-called law of nature. Maybe it's not a miracle, but just the way that God works. He works in us and through us, changing us and transforming us. So many things that I see would not have come about unless God did it. And he did it. But it doesn't mean that it's a miracle. So what is a miracle?