The little placard was a fixture at my Aunt Bessie’s house when I was young. She was really my great aunt, so she seemed old for my entire life. She wasn’t an educated woman, so she couldn’t have explained the theology behind it, but she had a powerful faith in God. On top of her huge old wooden console television, the words were always there in her living room.
“Expect a miracle.”
I didn’t really understand that in real-world terms. I knew about miracles from stories in the Bible, but I didn’t expect Moses to come along and part the Red Sea. I didn’t expect God to keep three young men from burning to death in a fiery furnace. I didn’t expect Jesus to come heal the sick.
But my Aunt Bessie did expect miracles. It took me awhile to understand, but Aunt Bessie’s influence finally rubbed off on me — because I expect miracles today, whether they make sense or not.
We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world
My bad teen poetry suggests I’ve always hungered for missing love
‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’