Miracles

So my sister and I do a Bible study every Thursday. In the last year we've done a whole series of Bible studies by the Women of Faith Study Guides. We noticed that each study guide, no matter the title or subject, ended by asking us to tell "our story" to the other Bible study members. "Our story" meaning how we, as individuals, found ourselves or our way back to Jesus. Well, since it's just her and I, it got a little repetitive to say the least. After we finished the final chapter, we'd just look at each other and then I'd say..."Do you really want to hear that part of my story again?" It became a joke between us. Kept us laughing and Bible study light hearted anyway. (I know, we sound like a couple of good times girls, don't we?? Laughing at ourselves and making jokes about our stories of how we found Jesus...Hot Damn! We're having some fun now!) So we decided to try a different type of Bible study. Something with a little more depth to it. Something that made us think a little bit more, something that really made us dig into the chapters of the Bible; to really find some meaning and insight. What we ended up choosing was Forgiven by Josh and Sean McDowell. Last week was chapter one. Two paragraphs in to chapter 1 we discovered that this was no easy peasy Bible study. "Oh, man" my sister says. "This is gonna be hard to do." Ya, no shit, I'm thinking to myself.  We struggled to get through chapter 1. It took us the better part of 2 hours. This is not feeling light hearted and fun anymore. But we kept pushing through the hard parts and yesterday we found ourselves at chapter two. Miracles. Chapter 2 is about miracles. The study guide has us read about the 3 separate miracles that Jesus performed. The first is His healing the sight of the blind man, the second is Him changing the jars of water into wine at the wedding and the third is Jesus bringing his best friend Lazarus back to life. In the middle of this study on miracles, the book suggests that we discuss with each other a problem we are experiencing in our lives right now and for us to ask for a miracle for ourselves. So, I tell my sister that we have more bills than money right now and that Christmas is gonna be real, real, lean this year. I need to grocery shop but I have no money until next week Friday. I also need to Christmas shop but if I can't buy food, I certainly can't buy presents! So together, her and I, we hold hands and pray for a miracle for me. Just a small one. I ask Jesus for a miracle regarding Christmas and buying presents and we ask Him if He can find a way to help me in this. And here is the answer I got to this my prayer of mine for a miracle.....
After Bible study, I headed to our local department store.  My daughter has asked for a tea pot for Christmas and I wanted to check out the prices on them. Tucked into my purse is a $5 gift card that we got for filling a prescription at this store. As I made my way down the aisle I saw an end cap that had 2 pair of children's mittens for $2 and a sign above it said 50% off. My grandson had no mittens the other day when he came over and his little hands were sooo cold. So I grab them (2 for the price of 1) and keep going. A few aisles over I find the tea pot. It is $9.99. I add up the purchases in my head, add a little tax, and figure that it's gonna cost roughly $11.00 and some change to buy these things.  Now also at this department store, they have what they call Reward Points. Every time we shop there, we get a percentage back as rewards for, well, shopping there. My Hubs gets his prescriptions at this store, so we usually have a few points to use towards future purchases. So with this in mind, I head to the checkout counter. The nice lady rings me up, asks me do I want to use my reward points and enters in the amount we have in our rewards account. Next I hand her my $5 gift card and she adds that to my transaction. When the cash register finally totals up everything, my cost is......are ya ready for this ???
39 cents. This is what I owe the department store. 39 cents.  39 cents for a tea pot and two pairs of mittens. And I can barely hold in my glee. I almost  pee'd myself. It felt like such an answer to my prayer. I practically ran out to my car so I could call my sister. "You'll never believe this", I shout to her on my phone! So I tell her my whole story and the both of us agree that, YES!, it is indeed an answer to our prayer. It is a tiny little Christmas miracle. Just enough of a miracle to help us both see Him and His answer in the middle of this prayer of ours. A tiny little miracle to remind us to keep the focus on Him this holiday season. I know it may seem like such a  little miracle, but for me, for her, it WAS a miracle none the less. We asked Him to give us one and He did. He does indeed answer prayer and sometimes, He throws in a tiny little miracle because two sisters needed Him to, because two sisters asked Him to. And I am grateful for it.