Trapped in a web I couldn’t unravel, alone in a cell
I couldn’t escape, abandoned and forgotten in a corner
Dark and dreary, without a choice to protest
Without a chance to contest, providence steered me
To stillness in a tumultuous world, to preserve purity
In putrefying conditions, see through darkness
Find glimmers of hope in uncertainties that pose no promises.
I wished for all I dreamed but couldn’t possess.
To my mute complaints, I was charged to want naught
Taught that all I have is all I need for this phase.
What I thought a joke ended too serious for my liking;
Stuck, bound, my muscles wrestled stagnation to maturity.
I learned to suck life’s best out of death; to see without eyes,
Thing that evade vision; discern signs of times;
Speak volumes without words, hear the voice of silence
And defy physics: perform unrestrained work without motion.
In that cocoon I labeled hades, heaven thrived and I was
Bettered to fly, transformed, not into the creeping fantasy
I nurtured. I turned out the incredible product of a power
Beyond my best. My past; renewed, restored, empowered
Distinguished with peculiar features, flavors and colors.
At dusk, I was trapped a worm but I emerged at dawn
A beautiful butterfly! What I branded misfortune
Was indeed a miracle in disguise.
Recall the song that says, “God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform,” by William Cowper. For years, I thought it was a Scriptural quotation and I searched through concordances and came up with nothing until a friend convinced me the origin was the song not the Bible. Yet, how true the sound of those words ring above the clamors and confusions of every day. God’s ways are not our ways and often, we label His great intentions toward us as evil because they don’t match our expectations. Nevertheless, His promise remains, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11.
If you are among those who wonder if miracles still happen these days, my response is that miracles happen every day within and around us. Often, we are too busy to notice, too distracted to appreciate, and even too misguided to see them for what they truly are. Every day, the events of life set their pots and fire around us, to cook up the miracles we ache for but we miss them because we cannot stand to bear discomfort. We write off every experience that is not to our pleasing.
Searching to see only the impossible, we miss the many possibilities for miracles in and around our lives on a day to day basis. We are looking out there to see the dead arise, the blind see, the deaf and dumb hear and sing but within and around us, we miss opportunities of experiencing new life, new sights and sounds because we mislabel the miraculous disguises that come our way. May we learn to not write off the seeming irregularities that life springs on us so we can experience the miracles of change they attract. Amen.
Blessings.
Glory!