There’s a family of ducks that just came to live in a pond that I can see from my house. It’s actually a mother duck and her fourteen babies.

I love watching them.

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Today is Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified.

Even though Jesus told His disciples, friends, and family that He would return, I don’t think any words could have comforted those who witnessed His death. Can you imagine being there when that happened – being witness to such a tragedy?

Jesus’ disciples had followed Him around for years, being inspired by His words and His actions, being a part of miracles, healings, and conversions of people to God. Then their world was shattered before their eyes by others who were afraid of this man. (So afraid, in fact, that those who crucified Him posted guards at His tomb to be sure He didn’t come back like He said He was going to.)

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It’s funny how God works.  It’s even funnier that most of the time He seems to like to work on me at about three in the morning.

Maybe that’s the time that God knows that I don’t have much else on my mind so it’s easier for Him to get through to me.  At about that time, I will wake up and find that inspiration for an article or a daily message hits me.  When I feel like I have a message to share, I make sure I write it down because, if I fall back to sleep, by the morning it will likely be gone – and I get quite frustrated with myself when I seem to let a message slip away.

I attended Catholic schools for ten of the first twelve years of my education.  Obviously, during that time, religious education was a big part of the curriculum that I was taught in school.  I learned quite a bit about religion.  Or, at least I thought so.

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I like to think that I have an open mind.  I try not to have preconceived notions about things before I experience them for myself.

For example, I will try new foods to see how they taste before I decide if I like them or not.  I don’t make decisions based on their name or the way they look or because someone else tells me they don’t like them.  It used to make me crazy when my kids would just look at a food and say they didn’t like it.  Most of the food they used to say that about they now love – all because they took some time and a little risk and they tried them.

I was flipping through the channels on my television the other day and I came across a preacher I had never heard of before.  So, I decided to listen to him and see what his message was.  He was a little bit too much full of fire and brimstone for me but, as I said, I like to listen before I make any judgments.

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I have been thinking a lot about miracles lately.  I’ve been wondering what makes an event a miracle?  Last night I got on my computer and did some research trying to find out how others define what a miracle is.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a miracle is defined as “an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.” This sounds good but it seemed too complicated, almost scientific, to me so I looked further. 

I found on thefreedictionary.com the following: a miracle is “An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God.”  Again, this sounded good but really didn’t hit home for me.

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