Miracles

Today's topic from the Cafe Chat at the Christian Women Online website (see my sidebar for the link) is to write about a miracle that the Lord has done in our lives.
God has done many, many miracles in my life. A couple of them have been physical healings. Some have been financial. Many have been emotionally or spiritually based.
Some have been downright surprises!
One I am going to share is about when I was struggling with being single.

I was 28 years old and living in the city of Albany, NY. I live close to there now.
I had moved there 2 years previous to attend the University and obtain my Masters degree and fulfill the research fellowship requirements as per the Educational Psychology guidelines.

I was teaching in a self-contained Special Education PreK classroom in an inner-city PreK and loving it. The campus was gorgeous, my team members were excellent professionals, the children were a blessing to me, and I was starting to get involved in a church that was also in an inner city but where the Lord wanted me at that time.
There were not a lot of single professionals in the church. It was mainly made up of young families who had lots of children and homeschooled them. We didn't really have much in common. Rather different from my personal beliefs but the Lord had brought me to this church and I was receiving some good teachings and finding that I liked the "charismatic" style of the church and its worship.

I was lonely though. I had a couple of good friends. One was married and in my small group. One was single and we hung out many times and established a good friendship. She ended up being my maid of honor!

One Sunday I was crying out to God in my apartment. It was a lovely spring day. I had gone to church and then did some biking and was back in my home preparing lesson plans for the week. I was overcome with loneliness for a male friend. I was not looking for romance. I had broken off a relationship with a guy who I knew I had no future with.....he was controlling and a backslidden Christian and had no desire to return to the things of God. So I had ended that relationship a couple of years previous. I had only dated a couple of times since then. But I was content in the no romance thing because I was so busy and active in the church, my teaching and my hobbies.

However, that day, I was really missing a couple of my male friends whom I had had a close freindship with during my Christian college days. I had graduated in 1982 with a Music degree and it was now 1988. I had kept in touch with one guy in particular who was such a close friend of mine our last 2 years of college. But...he was married at this point and our relationship, of course, was not the same. Plus, he was not living in the Capital Region any longer.
I asked God to bring me a male friend. I just wanted a guy I could talk with about the things of God, laugh with, hang out with, etc. I won't go into here just why, from a psychological viewpoint, a guy friend was a desire, but I had always had a male friend who I was close to. And so I was missing that kind of relationship.

2 hours after I prayed and laid this request at the foot of the Cross, the phone rang. It was a guy named Dave who attended the same church I did. I knew him on a very casual level from the music ministry team I had just joined. He asked me if I was free to help him with some music. I agreed. (I had a studio piano in my apt.). I had invited my friend Kathy over so I felt comfortable in having a male come into my apt since there were going to be 2 of us girls.
We hung out and sang worship songs, old hymns that all 3 of us loved and missed (our church at that time did not believe in doing the old hymns as part of worship!) and just had a fun time. Kathy had to leave at one point. Dave and I had dinner and then sat on my front stoop and talked until 2 a.m.!

As we were chatting about all kinds of things, it dawned on me that God had done a miracle in my life that day. He, the Almighty Father, had provided a new male friend for me. And we had lots in common. He was also finishing up a Masters degree and was very ambitious to start his career. He loved the Lord. He loved music. He and I hit it off. We spent hours together. He volunteered in my classroom and helped me on field trips. We studied the Bible together. We hiked together. Did our laundry together. We were best friends.

That male friend is now my husband of 18 years and the father of my 2 precious daughters.
I thank God every day for His provision in not just providing me a husband, but in providing me a friend whom I can grow old with! He gave me the desires of my heart. And I believe that is a miracle. God is faithful and true and his mercies are everlasting!