Miracles on the Seashore
I have met some of the most interesting people in my life while standing waist-deep in the water. Maybe it’s because I love the beach. Maybe people are more willing to talk when their toes are in the sand and there’s nowhere they really need to be. Or maybe God just knows He has my undivided attention on the seashore.
Whatever the reason, He keeps putting people in my path with stories I can’t forget. Stories of miracles.
I have become more and more expectant of miracles in my own life and in the lives of the people around me. Now, let me clarify. I don’t particularly want to be in a situation where I NEED one. 😊 I’d much rather hear about somebody else’s miraculous rescue while I’m floating peacefully in crystal-clear water with absolutely nothing requiring rescuing on my end.
But I know God is still in the miracle business. The more I pay attention, the more I realize He is working around us all the time. Sometimes the things that look like disasters in the moment completely redirect our lives. Of course, that doesn’t mean every bad thing becomes a good thing. Some things are simply painful, heartbreaking, and impossible for us to understand. But I’ve lived long enough to know that God can take circumstances I would never have chosen and somehow use them to change the entire direction of my life.
And lately, He seems to keep sending me people who remind me of that. Oddly enough, several of them have shown up in the water.
A Miracle at Honeymoon Beach
As you probably know by now, I LOVE St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is my other happy place. Mike and I have been going there since the early 2000s, and over the years we’ve explored many of the beaches beyond the ones everybody knows.
On one particular trip, we found ourselves at Honeymoon Beach, near beautiful Caneel Bay. It was secluded, peaceful, and stunningly gorgeous. One of those places where the water is so clear you almost wonder whether God turned the saturation up a notch.
While we were wading around in the Caribbean, we met a couple from Colorado. You know how occasionally you meet someone and within an hour you feel like you’ve known them for years? They were those people. We stood there in the water talking for hours, bouncing from one subject to another, when somewhere in the conversation they mentioned they had written a book.
Well, of course, immediately I was impressed, and I wanted to know more.
But I wasn’t prepared for the reason they had written it.
Their 21-month-old son, Gore, had wandered away from their home and drowned in a ditch behind their house. He had been underwater for 25 minutes in icy waters before they located him. He was unresponsive, and rescuers worked for 55 minutes to bring him back. Eventually, they restored his heartbeat. Good grief. Can you just imagine what was going through their minds???
But that was only the beginning.
His parents were facing the devastating reality of what that length of time without oxygen could mean for their little boy. Doctors are always armed with medical facts, statistics, and the usual realities of some very grim possibilities. But his parents also had prayer.
People from their church and community began praying for Gore. People everywhere were praying for this little boy to be restored. And against seemingly impossible odds, Gore survived. With intensive medical care, including advanced cooling treatment, he went on to make a remarkable recovery. The little boy whose future had looked impossible grew up without the impairments his family had been warned might come.
Now THAT will get your attention while you’re standing in the Caribbean.
Praise God!
But what struck me almost as much as the miracle itself was what his family did afterward. They didn’t want to quietly move on with their lives and forget what had happened. They told the story. They wrote a book, appeared on national television, and shared what their family had experienced because they wanted people to know what God had done in their lives.
And years later, there I was, standing in the water at Honeymoon Beach, hearing their story firsthand. I thought that was pretty amazing.
Apparently, God wasn’t finished talking to me about miracles.
Another Day, Another Body of Water
Fast-forward many years. Just a few weeks ago, we were out enjoying our own little slice of paradise that we call Jellyfish Island. I floated over to talk to a family anchored near us. Nothing unusual. Just me floating around talking to strangers. If you know me, you know this is completely normal behavior. 😂
Within about fifteen minutes, the woman began telling me about her son. And wouldn’t you know it? She had a story of miraculous healing too.
There I was again. Floating in the water, listening to another mother tell me about something that had happened to her child that she could only describe as a miracle.
Okay, God. I’m listening.
Apparently, Water Isn’t Required
Then I went to get my hair done.
Because apparently God decided He didn’t need a beach for EVERY one. 😊
I ran into a Realtor friend I hadn’t seen in years, and as we caught up, she began telling me about her teenage granddaughter. Her granddaughter had been communicating online with someone she believed cared about her and could somehow rescue her from the struggles she was experiencing.
One night, she left a note, left home, and boarded a flight to meet him. Her family discovered what was happening and desperately reacted to find her. Thousands of miles away already, they reached her just before the situation likely would have become something unimaginably worse.
Her grandmother didn’t describe that timing as luck. She described it as a miracle. Only God.
Once again, I found myself wondering: How many times does God show up in our lives and we call it coincidence?
But Miracles Are Complicated
Here’s where writing about miracles gets difficult. Because for every story like Gore’s, there is someone who prayed just as fervently and didn’t receive the ending they desperately wanted.
Someone prayed for healing and still lost the person they loved. Someone prayed for the marriage that still ended. Someone prayed for the child who didn’t come home. Someone begged God for the test result to be different, and it wasn’t.
I don’t believe that means they didn’t pray hard enough. I don’t believe they had less faith. And I certainly don’t believe God loved them any less.
That’s the part of faith we don’t always like talking about. We want miracles to make sense. We want prayer to work like a formula:
Prayer + Faith = The Outcome I Asked For.
But God has never promised us a life where everything turns out exactly the way we want.
He promised us Him. A loving Father that would always be there for us, even when times are the toughest. Even when the odds are stacked against us.
And I’m learning there is a tremendous difference between what we may ask for, and what God knows we need. God knows infinitely more about what is best for us than what we understand. And it sure does require a lot of faith and trust.
Maybe We’ve Been Looking for the Wrong Thing
I’ve been the recipient of miracles myself. I am sure hundreds of them. Some I recognized immediately. Others only became visible when I looked backward and retraced the steps.
There have been circumstances in my life where I felt like there was no hope, but God completely uprooted my path and restored my footing. At the time, I didn’t call them miracles. Some of them I probably called disasters. But looking back now, I can see God in places I couldn’t see Him while I was living through them.
Maybe that’s part of the problem. We tend to think miracles must always be dramatic. A person is healed. A life is saved. The impossible suddenly becomes possible. And YES, sometimes that’s exactly what a miracle looks like.
But sometimes it’s quieter. Sometimes the miracle is healing, and sometimes it’s rescue. Sometimes it’s a door opening, and sometimes it’s a door slamming shut. Sometimes it’s meeting exactly the right person at exactly the right time. Sometimes it’s strength you absolutely did not have yesterday. Sometimes it’s peace that makes no earthly sense.
And sometimes you don’t recognize the miracle until years later, when you look backward and realize:
Had THAT not happened, I never would have gotten HERE.
So Yes, I Absolutely and Firmly Expect Miracles
I don’t think meeting all these people were coincidences. Everywhere I go, people seem to find me, or more likely, I find them, and before long they’re telling me their stories.
Maybe it’s because I ask questions. Maybe it’s because I genuinely want to know people. Or maybe God knows I’ll listen.
And apparently, He knows I’ll tell somebody else. 😊
I want to hear these stories. I want people to tell them. I want us to stop being embarrassed to say, “Look what God did!”
Because we are incredibly quick to explain things away. Timing. Luck. Doctors. Science. Coincidence. And don’t misunderstand me, I am incredibly grateful for doctors, medicine, science, technology, and every gifted person God uses along the way. But I also don’t want to become so sophisticated that I lose my ability to stand in awe.
I believe God still moves. I believe He still heals. He still rescues. He still redirects. And sometimes, I believe He simply places one person in the path of another at exactly the right moment. Don’t be too afraid to even pray for circumstances that look impossible to restore. Do it anyway. And by all means, do not ever give up hope. God always loves you. God still wants the best for you. God will restore. It is His promise. It just may not be in the way we expected.
Back to the Seashore
Maybe that’s why God keeps meeting me near the water. The ocean has always reminded me how little I actually control. I can’t stop the tide. I can’t command the waves. I can’t prevent a hurricane. And I can’t see what’s beyond the horizon. Sometimes I can’t even see what is right in front of me.
But I can stand at the edge of something much bigger than myself and remember Who can.
So yes, I will keep praying for miracles. I will keep expecting God to move. I will keep looking for Him in the circumstances around me, and I will celebrate the miracles when I recognize them.
But I’m also learning not to define God’s goodness by whether He answers exactly the way I asked. Sometimes the miracle is the answer we desperately prayed for. And sometimes the miracle may be what God does in us, through us, or around us while we’re waiting for an answer we don’t understand.
Maybe miracles aren’t always about getting the ending we wanted. Maybe they’re also about recognizing God’s presence in the story we’re given.
So, keep your eyes open. Your miracle may be obvious. It may be unfolding quietly. Or you may have already lived through one and simply haven’t recognized it yet.
As for me? I’ll keep looking.
And apparently, every now and then, God will send me another reminder… right there on the seashore.
Want to Read More?
Two of the families whose stories have crossed my path have shared their experiences in books. If you’d like to hear their stories in their own words, I’ve included them below.
Giving Up Gore by Dave and Amy Otteson — the story of Gore’s drowning, survival and miraculous recovery.
From 8,000 Miles: A True Story of Internet Danger and How Our Daughter Was Saved By Destiny Dawn Harris — the story referenced above about a family’s race to save their daughter.