Half a year gone…and do you believe in miracles?

It’s the first of July. Which means that half a year is gone. I never make any resolutions so how the heck I know what I have achieved? Anyway, this is not a check list to cross out the resolutions completed.

Today’s mass is about faith and how much do we believe in miracles. Faith? I have a lot. Miracles? I never ask. Then again, I am too much of a cynic to believe even my own doctor. How then, can I believe in miracle from a God that I can’t argue with?

In my book, Little Heroes, I inserted a page about miracles, calling for those parents whose children are critically ill/dying/severely handicapped etc to believe in miracles. When I wrote that, I was full of contention. Sure can…..just believe and pray hard. I even took that page on trusting God to my parish priest, Mongsr. Father Stephen Liew to let him check that I am not babbling too much.

We had a healing prayer today where our parish priest, Father Henry asked us to close our eyes and seek Jesus’s presence and God’s healing. In the deepest of my heart, I have faith that many things can be healed with faith. If I allow myself too much mediation, I will sleep in the spirit, just like that. (To the fellow Catholics, I can konk out in less than a minute 🙂 if I am prayed over. ) But it is a mass so, I only go skin deep.

I then wonder……suppose I was already a Catholic Christian when Vincent was sick, would I have the same amount of faith I have now? (I have no inkling of Christianity back then) Would I have prayed hard and believe in miracles? Would things have turned out different? I bet I would have abandoned my faith after all the ‘assaults and disappointments’ I went through.

I saw Vincent’s doctor during Holy Communion. And I found my answer. Though I don’t have the faith in God back then, many did. Vincent’s favourite doc is one of them. Staff Nurse Deepa (from Mumbai) is another. Not to mention the strings of Christians matrons and nurses plus this wonderful physiotherapist, Anne who often told me how hard they prayed for Vincent’s recovery. I had online friends and friends who also prayed hard.

They believed in miracles. If back then, I had believe in miracle, things would still turned out the same. Vincent would still have died. But the miracle comes in my salvation. The miracle comes in the form of Matthew (Gift of the Lord) whose presence in our home now makes the whole family so much happier.

Not that I don’t regret that Vincent wasn’t healed. But we have to be realistic and not set strict expectations from God. Like people often said, you may not always get what you prayed for because God knows better what is best for you. Well, believe that. Sometimes, we asked too hard and too much but those things may not be what is best for everyone. So, one has to hang on by the teeth when the going gets tough and keep praying and keep hoping.

In the long run, when we take a step back and see the things in totality, we realised that hey, this is still a good deal. I don’t get what I had asked but overall, things ain’t so bad.

So, keep believing in God. Keep asking Jesus to walk with you. Keep believing in miracles. You will definitely get a better deal that way.

Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24

God did not make death,
nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.
For he fashioned all things that they might have being;
and the creatures of the world are wholesome,
and there is not a destructive drug among them
nor any domain of the netherworld on earth,
for justice is undying.
For God formed man to be imperishable;
the image of his own nature he made him.
But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,
and they who belong to his company experience it.

(Book of Wisdom – I think only the Catholic Bible has this book.)

(Woohoo! I didn’t know that I can write this much when I started this post. Thanks to the extra time between England vs. Portugal in the Fifa World Cup 2006. Yawnnnnn…I will pray for England to lose! God hear my prayers. 🙂 I want underdogs to win. Not some celeb and that anorexic wife. )

Updated : GOAL!!!!!!! Yay, my prayers come true! England lost!