We tend to think of miracles as no longer happening. After all, so many times we pray for things to happen and they don’t. We figure God doesn’t care. That He doesn’t listen to us.

Simply not true. I’ve seen them, and even been the recipient of a few.

Consider these stories….

The lifesaving organ transplant surgery that came just in time, in fact only one week after being placed on the transplant list, which saved the recipient’s life.

A man who had a devastating stroke five years ago which hospitalized him for five weeks, three of which he still doesn’t remember. A man who had to re-learn now to speak, how to walk, how to feed himself, yet today no one who meets him has any idea of what he experienced and how close he came to dying. His wife calls him “her walking miracle.”

A woman facing a major 9-10 hour operation that had only a 20% chance of surviving the surgery, let alone ever recovering, and yet left the hospital less than a week after the operation,  right before Christmas, and who’s now living an almost perfectly normal life two years later.

A woman who was told she’d never get pregnant giving birth to her third child.

A man who went in the hospital for a biopsy of a lump on his pancreas which the doctors were convinced was pancreatic cancer, one of the most deadly diagnoses. A man whose doctor just couldn’t understand his the lump could have totally disappeared in only three weeks, and after 12 years still has no such sign.

An accident victim not expected to live, or if he did, who’d be totally incapable of doing anything for himself; who’s now competing in marathons and actually coming in the top 10% of the runners.

And let’s not forget the nan who was rushed to the hospital after passing out, who just after being hooked up to every machine possible in the ER, coded in front of his wife and daughter, who watched helplessly as the doctor and nurses fought to bring him back. The man who walked out of the hospital the very next day with a pacemaker and a brand new chance at life. Who’s still going strong four years later.

A head on collision and a totaled minivan, yet all five people, including three children under the age of 6, in which everyone walked away with only minor injuries.

A rear end collision in which air bags deployed, preventing drivers from seeing where the were going, but yet both drivers walking away, again with only minor injuries.

At times like this we all need to stop and thank the Lord for His protection and care.

For His love and mercy. For His angels guarding everyone involved, and making sure everyone realizes that no matter how bad the original circumstance were, it could have ended so much worse.

But He helped each person involved, helped them to realize He wasn’t finished with them yet. They had more to do with their lives. That His plan for each of their lives would be realized. And then, and only then, would He call them home.

We tend to forget that these miracles still happen. Until they happen to us or our loved ones. I know all of these people. I rejoice at these amazing stories, one of which is mine.

Think about it.

What miracle has the Lord shown you recently?

This week has taught me a lot. I didn’t realize it until about midway through the week though.

Because sometimes things just have to hit us head-on before we realize that we cannot take anything for granted.

We take our voice for granted. Absolutely we do. We get up, tell our husband and kids “good morning” and start to begin our day.

Unless, of course, we wake up and we have laryngitis, that annoying pesky little inflammation of our vocal chords that says “I’m not letting you talk today! See how you like that!”

And suddenly, we can’t communicate, except by writing things down. Thank goodness for cell phones and texting, so at least I could make myself known to my family.

And for email at work. Of course the first day I had it, I received more phone calls than I usually get in a week! That was interesting! Fortunately everyone understood and ended up using email, but still….

At first, being the typical husband, Ben made jokes about it being a great birthday present for him that I couldn’t talk, but as the week progressed, he finally realized it wasn’t funny any more. Not only could I not talk, but I also developed a horrible cough at night, and ended up pulling muscles in my rib cage and stomach from it! Cough meds helped, but very little.

And every home remedy I tried…forget it! I even went to the doctor who told me, guess what, I had laryngitis and there’s nothing she could give me for it! Just don’t talk, drink hot tea with honey, etc.

I don’t like hot tea. I like it even less now.

And the longer it went on, the more frustrated I got. The more I tried to “talk” or should I say whisper, the more frustrated I got, and it was actually exhausting! I couldn’t communicate with my husband or our daughter except by texting because they couldn’t hear me.

Even going out for dinner for his birthday, I could only communicate with Ben by texting. Talk about frustrating! I was almost in tears after five days of it.

Then I realized….what’s it like to be like this permanently? Not speak at all? Or not to be able to hear? Or see? The things most of us take for granted others would give so much to have, even for a short time.

My voice is almost back now, but not totally. I’m still trying not to use it unless I have to so I don’t have a relapse.

It’s been a long week.

My story is but one small but frustrating example. It’s nothing compared to a woman I know who got a surprise call one morning this week that the fire trucks were at her house, and she needed to get home immediately! She’d certainly never even considered something like that happening. She sent her children to school, locked up the house and headed to work….and came home to a huge mess. Her stove evidently had a short somewhere which started the fire. The kitchen is gutted. Their belongings covered in soot and much of them wet and unsalvageable, and they face months of living somewhere else until insurance can repair the damage. But insurance cannot replace some of the precious photos and mementos that were lost.

Like all of us, they assumed their home would always be there, a safe haven and place of rest, housing their valuables and memories. We take it for granted, until that one time when everything changes.

Other people go to work one day, ready to make the day productive, and suddenly find themselves unemployed. A job they enjoyed, or certainly needed, a job they took for granted, is suddenly gone. And they have to start over, with only their unemployment check and an updated resume.

Many other people go to the doctor for a routine check-up, and end up with a life-altering and unexpected serious diagnosis. The health they took for granted is no longer healthy. And they look back on weeks past and wish they could go back.

There are many others. My story is minuscule in proportion, but nevertheless frustrating to me. And others around me.

But looking at it in comparison to other events, I do have to feel quite fortunate that’s my only frustration for the week.

And when I do get my voice back, I plan on making up for those lost days! But some people can’t make up for their losses; they have to start over. And I will probably eventually start taking it for granted again, because that’s just human nature.

Words of wisdom: Never, ever, take your life, or anything in it, for granted. Appreciate everything and every day. Because you just never know.

If I just had a second chance I’d….

Why didn’t I do…..instead of what I did?

I had the chance to do….but I blew it! Why’d I make that decision? How can I change it?

Why do I always give in when I know I shouldn’t?

Why do I always second guess what I’ve done…and when I do, I know what I should’ve done instead. But now it’s too late.

We all say these things at one point or another in our life. Sometimes we say them, think them, many times. Over and over, in fact.

You’ve all heard the saying, “hindsight is 20-20”. And it sure is! Every time.

Every one of us at one time or another makes a wrong decision. We’re lucky if we only make one of two; most of us actually make wrong decisions almost every day. Whether it’s taking the wrong route to get to work, ordering the wrong lunch, or saying something out of place in a conversation, and immediately wishing you could snatch the words out of the air and put them back in your mouth. Or go through the floor.

Do-overs. Oh, what we’d give to have an opportunity for just one or two of them!

But then, just maybe, some of the most precious things, most precious people, in our lives wouldn’t be in our lives.

There’s the woman who’s in the middle of getting a divorce, and it’s not an easy one. Almost every day she says why did I ever marry that man?! And then  she looks at her three children and realizes, if she hadn’t married him, those children wouldn’t be here.

Or you take a wrong turn on your way to work which makes you late. You’re so mad at yourself…until you hear a news report about a fatal traffic accident on that same road that happened right after you turned off onto the wrong street. Do you still want a do-over?

Or for many years you’ve always regretted breaking up with that one guy you just knew was the love of your life. Because your parents and friends kept warning you about him. You took their advice, but you always wondered…until you discovered he’s now in prison for murdering his wife. The one he married a few years after you broke up.

Now these are extreme examples, of course. We all make decisions and choices on a daily basis. Some wrong; some right. Some we can change; some we can’t.

Life is not a movie in which we can re-shoot a scene if we don’t like it, or change a script to make the ending different. Because if it were, we’d never be satisfied. We’d always want to re-do something until we got it perfect. And in doing that, we could miss out on something precious. Someone precious.

I wanted to be an attorney when I graduated from college. But my first husband wanted to do that as well. And since we had already gotten married before graduation, I decided to wait. He applied to several law schools and didn’t get accepted. So I certainly didn’t try, because if I’d gotten accepted when he didn’t, well, that wouldn’t have been too good for the relationship. A few years later that marriage ended, and I figured by then it was too late to try, and my career path took a different turn. Had I ended up going to law school, I wouldn’t have been in the place I was, at just the right time to meet Ben, who’s been my husband now for 32+ years. And I wouldn’t have our daughter Ashley, or our precious granddaughter Rachel. I wouldn’t change that for anything. And funny how things go….my career in real estate has led me to be in charge of writing and interpreting leases…legal documents…and working closely with the attorneys who prepare some of them. My life may not have been what I thought it was going to be, but it certainly turned out just the way it should have.

Life isn’t always perfect. Our lives are the product of our choices, just like mine has been. All of our choices. Yes, we are affected by others’ choices as well, but how we react to those choices determines our life. Their decisions alone do not ultimately determine our life. We can live in the land of regret or we can live in the land of new beginnings.

And the sunrise of the future is so much brighter than the sunset behind us.

It can happen in the blink of an eye. In a nano-second. Faster than it’s taken me to write these first few sentences.

One minute life is perfect…or almost perfect. The next minute the phone rings and your world is turned upside down…never to be made right again. You thought you had all the time in the world.

And suddenly that time is no more. The cord was cut; the connection severed. And it cannot be repaired.

All the things we’d planned to do to make things right are only that. Plans we had. Plans that will never work because they can’t be used.

“I was going to call tomorrow…”

“I was going to stop by this weekend…”

“I was going to apologize…”

“I was going to tell him/her how much I love them…”

“I was going to ask for forgiveness…”

“I was going to forgive…”

“I was going to say let’s try again…”

Look at the common denominator in these sentences. “I WAS going to…” But you didn’t. You put it off. You ignored that feeling inside you that said, “do it now”.

You were too angry. Too hurt. Too proud. Too afraid. You knew you were right and no matter what, you would NEVER forgive or listen to what they had to say.

Because you didn’t know what would happen if you did. You didn’t know how they’d take it, so you waited for them to make the first move.

Or you waited for them to finally see things your way, and tell you you were right all along and their point of view was totally wrong.

Now they can’t say anything. Neither can you. Your chances in this life are gone.

And what’s even sadder…most of the time it’s a family member, or members, that I’m talking about. Sure, friends fit in that situation as well, but when it’s family, it’s so much worse.

Lately I’ve tried to reach out to several people. It was difficult. Because I knew what would probably happen. But I tried anyway. Unfortunately, so far I was right. But it won’t stop me from trying again.

Because anger, hard feelings, grudges, and indignation have no place in a family, or a friendship.

We have no idea when it’ll be too late to try. No idea when we’ll get a call, or even worse, read about it in the newspaper because no one would take the time to reach out and at least let us know. I’ve been on that end, too, and most likely so have you.

Loved ones can be lost in many ways; they can be lost to us because of words and misunderstandings, and they can be lost forever because they’re no longer here.

Is there someone you need to reach out to? Don’t wait. Try. You may not get a response, as in my case, but you need to try. And then try again. No matter who or what started it, you need to be the one to start the reconciliation process. Before it’s too late.

Because when a loved one is lost forever, you’ll only have regrets.

And memories of what could have been again.