In our cynical, western, enlightened minds, miracles are generally a thing of the past. Supernatural is almost synonymous with superstitious and indeed, the superstitious are often the ones looking out most keenly for the supernatural. As a realist, the facts are the facts. It is what it is. This is, admittedly, often to my detriment. It’s hard to pray with faith for a miracle when reality looms in its way. 

But miracles still happen as we know, as much as we may doubt them in the moment. They come at very particular times and to meet serious needs, situations that cannot be resolved any other way. God doesn’t fling miracles about like He did the stars into their galaxies. He doesn’t turn water into wine at every wedding, but He’ll do it for one if He chooses. He’ll jam the firearms of His people’s enemies. Not every war, not every battle, but He will do it if need be (See O Jerusalem by Larry Collins). For a school of hungry orphans, He will purposely and carefully cause the milk truck to break down at their front door (See George Mueller). I suspect they actually occur far more often than we give God credit for. Perhaps we have become so accustomed to miracles they are no longer considered as such. We describe the world around us as “wonderful!” “Incredible!” “Who would have thought?” when what we really mean to say is “There is a miracle-working God in Heaven who caused this seed to sprout, this child to heal, this soul to repent, this law to pass. Truly there is no one like our God.”  

We have witnessed several miracles this month. And It feels so humbling to say that. Like the desperate father of a possessed son we cry out joyfully reproved, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!” 

I’ll share two of them that are shareable. 

There is a family here whose poverty seems almost unimaginable, mainly brought on by a father who battles alcohol and drug addiciton. A few weeks ago I asked the mother after one of their boys who wasn’t with her. “Ohh, my little Carlitos. What can I say? He was helping us to gather firewood in the bush when suddenly he cried out that a branch had pierced his eye. It is all red and he is in so much pain but we can’t afford the travel or appointment costs to take him to an ophthalmologist.” 

Due to my lupus, I’ve also developed Sjogren’s Syndrome which affects the eyes. I had just completed a round of treatment and had a good amount of antibiotic eye drops left over. Antibiotic eye drops do nothing to heal the eye- they obviously only fight bacterial infections. 

The next day I ran the drops over to their place, explained the treatment, how many drops per day etc etc and let her know very clearly the drops would not actually heal the wound in his eye, which was now about a week old, but were just to prevent serious infection from the injury and exhorted the boy to not rub it under any circumstances. I took a picture of the eye, desperately red with an obvious white wound  at the bottom left of iris, and whatsapped to my dr to see what she said. I was hoping for just the name of proper drops to help the healing which I could pick up for them at a pharmacy. When she wrote back it was: give him antibiotic drops and he really should see an ophthalmologist if there is no improvement over the next few days. 

So we prayed. At that point, that was all that could be done. 

When I went to see him the next Sunday, Carlitos came out grinning away. His eye was clear, the whitish bulb of a wound completely vanished. “Thanks to the drops, sister…” his mom began. And inside my heart leapt and danced and cried with joy: it wasn’t the drops! It couldn’t have been. It was our God of mercy. 

While Carlos was healing, another battle was was being waged which also took a miracle to resolve. Over the summer, someone leaked copies of the new government issued elementary school textbooks to social media. The content, the images, the lack of proper Spanish, the lack of mathematics–the textbooks were depraved woke socialism at their apex. Believers across the country were plunged into desperate prayer. Many began to seriously consider homeschooling, despite incredibly limited resources. The innocence, the chastity, the spiritual good of their children’s very souls were at stake. Yet, you know this well. Mexico is far from the only country with a contaminated school system. In some states evangelical churches across the board gathered for large prayer meetings. Here, not a meeting went by when God was beseeched to have mercy on the children of Mexico. Signatures on statements were raised and presented to the secretary of education to halt their production and delivery. Parents raised their voices. In the next state over the books that did arrive were burned on a public street.

The fact that the book distribution was halted last week is indeed a miracle. This was not some win for democracy. The current party with its strong socialist leanings cares little for democratic, conservative protocol. The heart of the king is in the hand of the same God who declared, “Let little children come by me.”

So there are two of our miracles this month. One, just a little village boy whose eyesight was saved, the other, the government of Mexico itself whose entire population of children were saved.

Reality isn’t really reality. It’s just our perceived reality.

Reality is actually comprised of a miracle-working God.