©Dreamstime

My husband’s birthday is August 15, and his entrance into this world was a most miraculous event. Here is the true story of his birth, which highlights two important things: The power of prayer, and miracles.

The setting is a small country hospital, and the time frame is the 1950’s. A place and time that did not offer the now common C-section. Labor was not going well at all and had lasted for hours and hours. Baby, (my husband-to-be) was not coming out, and mom had lost a lot of blood. Since the situation was dire and mom could not pray for herself, family, friends, and neighbors all prayed on her behalf and that of the unborn child. They also asked Mary to pray to her son, Jesus, for the struggling mother and child.

A very rough delivery finally happened, which involved large perineal tears and forceps. The days and weeks afterward were touch and go. The hospital stay lasted over a month! The fact that they both survived was described as a miracle.

Yes, miracles still happen today. They are not reserved for just biblical times. Miracles do not have to be grandiose, extraordinary events. We sometimes make the mistake of looking for God only in the extraordinary and miss opening our eyes to see Him in the everyday miracles of life.

In the poem below, I attempt to honor God, my husband’s family with their strong, prayerful faith, as well as the fact that miracles are all around us! It seems that my husband has an intuitive sense of the miracles around him. Maybe because he is a walking miracle? Or perhaps because he is the product of the power of prayer?  Either way doesn’t matter. I am so blessed to be in the midst of marriage with him and enjoying the mist of miracles all around us.

In the Midst of Miracles

In the midst of a century
full of carnage and decay,
the world strives with hope
to recover His way.

While in the midst of the States,
in the rural mid-west,
a Czech family sends
to the Lady their request.

For in the midst of a hospital,
a young mother lies
in the blood of endless labor,
lacking energy to try.

In the midst of the rosaries,
with the matter turning grave,
the faithful place their trust
in the Almighty who saves.

Then on the feast of the miracle
of Our Lady assumed,
in the midst of joyful tears,
a son came from the womb.

In the years that followed,
as the young boy grew,
in the midst of his youth,
his soul keenly knew

about the splendor of chipmunks
and the wonderment of bees
in the midst of fishing ponds
and enormous walnut trees.

Now the boy is a man
who declares with delight,
in the midst of a millennium
that’s seemed to lose its sight,

that miracles are everywhere —
in every breath and every bloom!
He and the Lady proclaim,
to a world bemused in gloom,

to pray, and to look,
as through life we all trod
for we’re in the midst of miracles,
we’re in the midst of God!