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Growing up in the church I have heard many stories about modern day miracles, but so many of these stories seem to be normal everyday occurrences that people ascribe to miraculous intervention from heaven. Is it really a miracle if it could have happened through the normal course of events? I am wondering if any of you have witnessed a true miracle, meaning something miraculous that undoubtedly required divine intervention. The following may be miracles but for my purposes they do not apply 1. Finding a lost item (car keys, childs toy, etc), unless it involved a clear heavenly vision of the place to look.
2. Overcoming an illness over time.
3. A wayward child, friend, or family member coming to their senses and shunning a wicked life.
4. Anything related to genealogy about miraculously finding family names.
Like I said these may be miracles but they also could happen on their own. Does anyone have first hand knowledge of the lame walking, the blind seeing, or mountains moving. Yes I know I am wicked seeking after a sign, but it fascinates me how we ascribe miracles to common events. Maybe common events are miracles but I would really like to hear about miraculous miracles like your read about in the bible.
Hey Cadence, I think that is a fair and rational question. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Miracles is something I have often thought about. During crisis times in our lives we especially want to believe there is a Heavenly Father that cares about our needs and will do an intervention. We all want an anchor we can count on since the world seems like being on a ship in a bad storm at times. It is easy for people of faith to rationalize miracles in order to hold on to their faith (like children wanting to believe in Santa Clause). As mature adults we also want to base our faith on truth and reality, not a pipedream where the bubble will burst someday like being told there is no toothfairy. I have often found it difficult to relate to the scriptures because of so much talk about angels appearing to people and miraculous events. As a young girl I loved watching the 10 Commandments with Charleston Heston playing Moses and the parting of the Red sea. So many times I wished some magic bullet or pill would cure my illness or help my gay son become straight. I have had some powerful spiritual experiences in my life but nothing that an atheist could not explain away I suppose.
If the purpose of this life is to become like God (or a perfected being) then I do suppose our Heavenly parents are not going to make life easy for us. So, generally I think we learn things by trial and error and through experiences. I do believe there are true miracles and heavenly interventions that cannot be explained away. I think they happen when we still have a purpose to fulfill on this earth. It also seems that having a strong faith or belief can do powerful things. Anyway, here are a couple of examples of what I believe are miracles that happened in my parents life during WWII. My dad told me these stories and I also read about them in their journals after they died. I have never know them to lie or exaggerate to me.
1. My dad was a convert to the church at 27 and had investigated the church for 3 years (actually trying to prove to his best friend that this church was of the devil). My dad became very attracted to geneology work (and this is not about him finding names). He did find alot of names and do alot of geneology. He had collected over 3000 names at one time and was going to send them in to have the work done. He rode his bicycle everywhere with these records on the back of his bike. He stopped on the beach for a swim and swam out several miles as he loved to swim and was a great athelete. Suddenly a big storm came up, the clouds became huge and black. It looked like the waves would swallow him up. He found himself sinking under and did not have the energy to swim back. During that experience he suddenly saw a panorama of all his ancestors being so upset and telling him he needs to go back and do this temple work for them. At that moment a sandbank came under his feet so he could stand with just his head sticking out of the water. It was there long enough for him to catch his wind and then disappered. He swam back and immeadiatley sent names in to have the temple work done for his ancestors. He felt the importance of not taking chances with his life.
2. During World War II in Berlin Germany my mother was left to care for my three older brothers as my dad was gone as a soldier being held in a prison camp in France. Her life was like in the movie, “Saving Private Ryan’ where you see this french family sitting scared in a bombed out building. My 3 brothers were 5, 3 and 3 months old when a bomb hit the apartment she was living in. She grabbed the boys in the buggy and ran out of the building which was on fire. She suddenly remembered that all the geneology my dad had collected was still in the apartment, so she ran back in to get it. She found it safe still and was trying to get out of the building but fire was all around her and she did not know how to get out. She began praying as she did not want to leave her 3 boys motherless out there. Suddenly, she saw an angel that led her out of the building. That day was also my oldest brothers birthday. He had been praying that his daddy would soon be released from prison. My mom had baked him a small cake, but he said he wanted to fast on his birthday so his dad could get out of the prison camp. My mom was worried he might loose his faith if it did not happen. Later they found out that was the very day my dad had been released from prison camp. Coincidence? Could be, but I think these two incidences were miracles among the many, I have read about in my parents journals after they died that have strengthened my faith.
On my mission, my companion and I blessed an elderly sick woman to be healed, she died a few days later. We also blessed a different old lady to be at peace as she died, she soon recovered.
I guess we weren’t as “in tune” with the spirit as we thought we were . . .
We had a very close family friend who was dying of a lung disease. He suffered terrible as his lungs began to fill up with fluid. The doctor’s did all they could do, but they told us that he would drown in the fluid that was building up in his lungs. I could see he was suffering. His wife, children and grandchildren were in pain just watching him suffer. I suddenly felt the sweetest peach come over all of us. I felt to tell the family, that “he who has lived unto the Lord, would die unto the Lord”, but wasn’t sure what that meant. I just felt that this man’s death would be comfortable, sweet and peaceful and that he had lived a life that the Savior found to be sweet and pure.
I felt an urge to test this man for TB using a rapid molecular-amplification technique that would give result in just a few hours. Before the end of the day, he was diagnosed with TB and was being administered a potent combination of four drugs. Slowly, he began to recover, getting a little stronger each day. He lived to hold his little granddaughter. He attended her blessing. He died a peaceful, reverent death, in no pain at all – 8 years later!!!
I have no doubt that this was due to the faith of this family. This man’s wife was the very same person who told me that my grandbaby would live, after the doctors told me that she would be stillborn. This man was the grandfather of my first grandchild.
About a year ago my dad was out in the garage working on one of the cars. It fell on him. He felt someone pick up the car enough for him to crawl out. There was nobody there. He managed back into the house and my mom drove him to the hospital. Nothing was damaged or broken. He could have been killed and wouldn’t have been found for at least 15 minutes. It really is a miracle that he was able to get out from under the car and have no bodily damage (other than major pain for a few days).
I have a few miraculous family stories: – When my sister’s son was 4, he had a twisted testicle (which sounds awful). Her husband was not a member in good standing, and they needed someone to give a blessing at the hospital (they were in a state with very little church presence). She didn’t know how to reach anyone in time. Two men nobody in the area knew showed up and gave a blessing and then left. They never saw them again. She thinks they were angels.
– Before my parents were members, my mom had a dream that her Lutheran minister was trying to convince her to be in his congregation. He said to her, “Look, your name is in my book. You belong here.” But when she looked, her name wasn’t in the book. She said, “My name’s not in the book.” Soon after, the missionaries came by.
– My mother was worried about my brother before he was born. The baby hadn’t moved. She was in the backyard, and she saw his spirit as a grown man. He said he would be born the next day, and to stop worrying, and he was.
In general, I tend to think that miraculous stories don’t help me unless they happen to me personally. IOW, they are very personal and have personal significance.
When we were small kids my mom was bathing my little sister in the the sink. She stepped away from her to check on us in the other room and while she had her back turned my sister pulled a small appliance ( I can’t remember what it was ) into the water with her. When my mom came back my sister was stiff, discolored and not breathing. She was only turned around for a second since we lived in a very small single wide trailer! My mom dialed 911 and started CPR. The miracle was that she hadn’t ever taken a CPR class and didn’t know how to do it! My sister was taken to the hospital and the Dr. said that if she hadn’t received CPR as soon as she did she wouldn’t have survived. My sister is healthy and suffered no long term damage from the accident. Yes, I have – particularly with four experiences of three very different natures and four distinct circumstances. Maybe someday I will write about them here. To be brutally frank, I am uncomfortable with one aspect of this topic – an implication that all miracles are good. I know that’s not stated explicitly, so I am going outside my parsing nature, but . . .
One of my experiences with a “miracle” was not a good experience. I believe deeply that there is a real “power of darkness” that can perform miracles – that not all miraculous manifestations are “of God”.
Story 1: Two years ago, I was volunteering at our week-long scout camp up in the North Georgia mountains. Just the week before, I had been in one of those online discussions (I think at NOM) about prayer and missing car keys — the cliche’ story we all throw out there when we try to dissect the miracle of praying for help from God. That is why this experience is so funny.
The gear was all packed and we were ready to head out. Lo and behold, one of the scoutmasters in another troop/ward with us could not find the keys for his truck. They were stuck in the middle of nowhere until those keys were found. All the adults and boys picked apart the camp site looking for them (about 30 people total). I myself walked around the truck several times, looking inside and out, thinking he had probably dropped them somewhere around the vehicle when they were loading the truck and trailer. Nothing was found by anyone.
All of us gathered back in the center of camp within site of this truck. Sure enough, one of the adult leaders suggested we should pray for help. So we said a group prayer. Yes, I was thinking to myself “this is just classic, just what I was talking about last week with other skeptics, the classic story of missing car keys. I wonder what will happen when we pray and they don’t turn up. ha ha.”
As soon as the prayer was over, all of us scattered again in different directions looking for the keys. I walked straight towards the truck from the center of camp, thinking that was the most likely place for them to be. I walked once around the vehicle and THERE THEY WERE, HANGING LOOSELY FROM THE PASSENGER DOOR!!!!! Nobody was over there at the truck while we were praying. It was in my sight the whole time. Several people, including myself, had walked around the vehicle and searched for the keys. That was the last place I was at before going to where we had prayed, and I was the only person at the truck before we prayed.
Story 2:
I was about 11 years old, and my family was on vacation at a palce called Houghton Lake in Michigan. This lake is very large, about 6 miles across at the widest point. It is far enough that you can’t really see the other side without decent binoculars. I loved fishing and dreamed of catching a giant Northern Pike from the deep parts in the middle of the lake. I spent a lot of my days in a row boat fishing by myself on these vacations, usually not that far from shore. This one day, I decided I would row out as far as I could go. I rowed and rowed for a long time, long enough that the shore where our cabin was at was very distant. When I got out there and started fishing, the dark clouds started rolling in, it started to rain and get very windy and choppy. I was only in a small row boat, and only about 10-11 yrs old (yes, looking back as a parent I think my own parents were freakin’ insane to let me do most of things I did as a child!).
I started to get worried and thought it was best to start rowing back, but it was soooo far back. About 15 minutes into rowing back, the swivel mount connecting the oar to one side of the boat snapped off. I then had nothing to connect the oar, and row boats don’t go very far with one oar in the water. They just go in circles. I sort of tried to row with one oar like I was in a canoe, but that was futile. I was getting scared of being out in that giant lake with a storm coming in. I decided I should pray to God and ask for help. I knelt in the boat and prayed my little heart out. About a minute after I ended my prayer, a small break in the clouds opened up far to the right of me as I was facing the shoreline where my parent’s cabin was located. A beam of sunshine was coming down along that part along the curved shore of the lake. I had this feeling that was where I needed to go (I don’t know why, but I remember that feeling). After a short while, I had a sense that the boat was moving in that direction. It seemed like I was getting closer to that part of the shore. I thought it was a trick of the mind because I was not rowing the boat. I checked around and looked out the back of the boat. Sure enough, there were those little ripples (I guess a slight wake?) that you see when a row boat is moving, but it was subtle. I dipped an oar in the water out the back to check, and sure enough, the boat was moving slowly across the surface of the water.
It took a good two hours or so to get that far. I jumped out of the boat when I got close enough to shore where it the water was only chest deep. As I pulled the boat up onto the shore, an old woman with white hair came walking to where I was at. The only thing I remember her saying was “You look like you are in trouble. I am going to take you home.” We walked up to the road. I got into her station wagon, and she drove me back to my parent’s cabin. She dropped me off at the entrance to where the cabins were located and drove off. Now the amazing thing is I don’t remember telling her where my family was staying. I was young, and don’t think I would have known how to give her driving directions. This lake is HUGE. You can look it up on a map (Houghton Lake, MI). It must have have tens of thousands of cabins along the miles of lake shore.
Anyone of the individual elements of this experience might be explained away or dismissed as chance, but not all of them together. Nothing happened until I prayed. After I prayed, the boat drifted right to the spot where the light came down. As soon as I got there (the only spot where light was streaming down along the shore), an old lady was there waiting to take me home as soon as I stepped onto the shore. All of these were physical realities that happened to me.
I have had many other interesting spiritual experiences. I can dissect most of them or say perhaps that it was just chance — like someone getting better naturally after a blessing, etc. But I simply can’t deny what happened in this one experience. It was a miracle.
Wow, Valoel – I got goose bumps on those. For the record though, I ran into a period several years ago when my testing of faith and priesthood “power” or “authority” did not go as I expected. It was something that troubled me. I find my self skeptical most of the time. A few things like what I described above … well, I just can’t deny them and be completely honest with myself. These things happen. They happen to me (which I have an easier time believing when I see them myself), but they also happen to others on a regular basis. What I think is really the true question when we ask about proof of “miracles” is not if they happen. I think we are often asking about a meaning. What I am trying to say is this. I have seen miracles, but what does that mean? The two stories above happened to me. I can’t say exactly what those experiences prove though. They were very cool, but they don’t prove to me that “the Church is true” or something. I am not even entirely sure they prove that God exists and answers prayer, at least not in the way most people assume. The only thing to me that they objectively prove (at least to me) is that there is a lot more to life than a pure materialistic world of the few things we can touch, see, feel and comprehend with our human minds and hearts.
So yes, “seeking after signs” is wicked. Wicked is really too strong a word. A better way to describe it with more words is it really doesn’t accomplish as much towards enlightening faith as one might think. So seeking after signs is an unproductive path towards believing and having faith.
To follow up on valoel’s comment, I have come to believe strongly that those who simply MUST have miracles to believe will find them – but that what they find might or might not be of God, and what they find might or might not be good for them even if from God. As I said in my last comment, at least one of the times I was exposed to the miraculous was a horrible experience with someone whom I believe truly had connected into an evil that I simply can’t describe adequately – nor do I want to do so. Even typing about it beings back memories I don’t want in my mind. However, I also have known good people who have experienced the miraculous and then obsessed over it to the point that they became miracle junkies – desperate for the next fix and convinced that their experiences made them special in some way, causing all kinds of damage to themselves and their families and acquaintances.
Finally, I think we tend to interpret the statement about an evil and adulterous generation seeking after a sign too narrowly. “Adulterous” is most commonly aligned with sexual sin, but one of the definitions of “adulterous” is “illicit” – and that word means “not legally permitted or authorized; unlicensed; unlawful; disapproved of or not permitted for moral or ethical reasons”. In this light, and the overall context of the original statement itself, it is clear to me that the description is one of someone who “cheats on” God – who is UNFAITHFUL to the covenant he made with God.
The core of that covenant is faith, which, at its center, means an allowance that there are things that are unknowable – that “signs” (proof) are not required for belief and discipleship. Demanding signs and miracles, therefore, is a direct repudiation of faith – since it takes the decision of when and how to present the miraculous to individuals out of God’s hands and demands this be done according to the desires of the mortals who are unwilling to wait (to “be still, and know that I am God”).
Sometimes, stillness is essential – and seeking for signs makes stillness and patient, humble reliance and faith impossible.
I didn’t grow up Mormon. I didn’t know what “Mormon” was until I was 18. Anyway .. This is about finding something but Oh well .. I was about five and I lost a little cross pin that my great grandmother had given me. I looked everywhere, even on the heater in the front hallway. After I looked in the hall .. I asked God to give show it to me if he was really God – or I wouldn’t be able to believe in him anymore. I walked back in the hallway and it was on the same heater. I was five and realized there was a higher power and thats all I’ve ever needed from then until now. Oh and I agree with Ray – imo Other peoples “Miracles” hold value only to the individual that experienced it .. and you never know what is of God and what isn’t .. They prove nothing. I think it is pretty dangerous for a group to lift themselves up through miracles as a form of proof for truth. It is pretty cool to hear about them though 
Quote:It is pretty cool to hear about them though
AMEN!!
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