I started writing down some of the stories about the miracles that I experienced last year in 2023, as friends and family had been wanting to about what happened and what I experienced in 2023.
I am still writing down all these stories of the miracles I witnessed and experienced last year. The more I write, the more I keep finding another, deeper level in the details of how each miracle happened, the events and details leading up to and building up to each of them, and the personal histories I have with each of the reasons why I prayed for help, relief, and healing from any of the obstacles that lead to the answers being the miracle resulting from each one of these prayers.
As I continue writing out these miraculous events and experiences that have transpired in my life over the past year and a half it is becoming more and more clear to me that it is not possible to ever adequately explain or convey these stories and events.
Not only do I not have the vocabulary to adequately express so many things that feel so ineffable, but I also see now more and more clearly that the level of personal significance to me of the details surrounding, leading up to, and how it all come to fruition – these experiences are incredibly sacred to me. And I cannot imagine allowing such intimate moments between me and God to be treated with even the slightest casualness.
I can still tell you about miracles. I can tell you what I have learned about miracles. I can perhaps even tell you a little about some of the miracles that I experienced that are appropriate for me to tell if I tell them with the appropriate level of detail, with an appropriate amount of reverence, and with an appropriate perspective and purpose for telling them in the first place, and, barring any additional thoughts that I might have not yet thought about that might later change my perspective and decision to do so, I still intend to tell you about what I learned from my experiences of last year.
The Storm We’re In, The Storms Ahead, and Facing It Together
I want to let you all know that I feel that telling these stories are important. Not because it’s my story, but because I have always felt so deeply, for so long that it is important to let others know that they are not alone in their struggles. I vowed to myself in the Autumn of 2013, while I was going through some of my darkest days of depression to date at that time, that because I never wanted anyone else to feel as alone and hopeless as I did in my struggles, that I would someday be that friend who was open about talking about their struggles so that at least my friends and family would not have to feel so alone as I did at the moment that I made that vow.
The world is changing. We all see it. And I frequently find myself hearing about the staggering rise in suicides that have occurred and increased over the past five years. I see my family and friends around me struggling, and I worry about them, and all of the weight of their burdens that I can’t see outwardly. So many of the stories I hear about those who lost their lives due to the weight of their burdens being more than they could carry alone – they were carrying them alone, because their loved ones had no idea that they were struggling or struggling so much.
I cannot sit here idly and just hope and pray for the best. Prayer rarely has any power if we do not also get up off our knees and get to work on the things that we are praying for. We cannot do it alone. We need God’s help to do anything, especially when it’s important. But we have to do something. We have to do more than utter idle words.
I know the future of the world doesn’t depend upon me, and I know that I cannot actually save my family and friends from the struggles and hardships of this life, but I am determined to do what I can to simply be a true friend in whatever way possible that I can.
