“Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.”

– Georges Bernanos

My Dad always used to tell us, “The lottery is a retirement plan for people who are really bad at Math.”  Still, thousands of people play the lottery each day, hoping that the ticket they buy will be the one to usher in a life filled with riches.  Now and then, we read the stories of the rare folks whose thrift allows them to accumulate millions simply by working steadily at a job and salting away pennies over a lifetime.  Most of us live in the area between these two extremes; but it is part of being human to look for miracles and dream that one might come our way.

I learned about looking for miracles on a September day thirty years ago.  I probably have told this story before; but as I enter the seventh decade of my life, I will lay claim to the right to repeat myself.  After all, I’ve learned from others who have reached my ripe old age that there are some stories worth repeating so that their message can encourage us again and again.

It was a time in my life when I really needed a miracle.  Seven months had passed since the untimely death of my six-year-old son.  A new school year had begun, and I was confronted with images of his classmates — a year older — lining up at the bus stop and waiting to go to second grade.  My son would not be on the bus.  He would not go to second grade.  He would not graduate from high school or college or have a family of his own.  My world had fallen apart, and I was desperately looking for a miracle that would put the pieces back together again.  In the midst of my searching, I found myself on a beach in New Jersey.

It was a cool Autumn day, and I pulled a sweater around me as I walked.  It was too cold to kick off my shoes and walk in the water, so I left my footprints just above the tide line as it receded.  I was talking to God — maybe yelling and complaining is a better description — and asking why I had been singled out for this life of misery.  There was a huge hole in my heart, and I knew for certain that it could only be filled by my child.  The only solution would be a miracle — the sort of spectacular one that would return him to me from the dead.  I had heard that miracles only came to those who expected them; and I really tried to be expectant as I walked that day on the firm, wet sand, but every expectation that flashed through my heart soon was replaced by the harsh, cold realization that my son was gone and would not be returning.

Angrily, I kicked a clump of seaweed that lay in the shell line deposited by the high tide.  As the green flew, my eye caught a bit of tan that was darker than the sand.  Starfish!  There on the New Jersey beach on a cold autumn day were more than a hundred tiny starfish, no more than an inch in diameter.  I stooped for a closer look, and before I knew it the upturned hem of my sweater was filled with them.  They did not fill the hole in my heart, but they did make it seem just a tiny bit less empty.  In that moment, I heard a voice in my mind say, “Be careful when you look for miracles.  While you are busy looking for the huge ones that elude your grasp, you may miss the small ones that lie at your feet.”

It would be a nice ending if I told you that my grief was healed that day; but the truth is that it took many months and years for the sharp pain to become occasional twinge prompted by memories of times gone by.  I will tell you that my heart opened that day and allowed the healing to begin.  In the thirty years that have passed since that day, I have been the recipient of countless miracles.  They have not been magical lottery wins or the earth-shaking sort of miracles we might dream of.  Instead, they have been small ones, like tiny starfish and sparkling stones and singing birds and sweet flowers.  One by one, they have come into my heart and filled the hole and soothed my pain.

A huge miracle occurred on that beach, but it was not the one I was looking for.  The world outside of me did not change that day; but the eyes of my heart were healed of the blindness of grief, and from that day on, I never again missed a miracle that lay in my path.  When our eyes are opened to the wonder of simply being alive, we discover that the miracle has been there all along, growing bigger each time another small piece comes our way.