For (and anyone else)

[Guest guest]

I love words. Words have a fascination for me, in the way they are

spelled, the way the sound, and in their derivation. I have found

sometimes that I think I know what a word means, and after looking it

up in a dictionary, I find that myoriginal definition may have been

way off base.

Today I was looking up a word, and happened to glance at the

word " miracle. " Thinking it must be a mistake on my part, I looked

more closely, and found that the WORD miracle derives from the Latin

word " mirare " meaning " to smile! "

I have seen some miracles in my lifetime. Perhaps the earliest one

is the miracle of my growing into a healthy, somewhat intelligent

adult despite the predictions of the doctor who delivered me. I was

more than six weeks premature, the result of a fall my mother

suffered from which she later developed toxemia. She was told that I

had cerebral palsy, and probably should be put in an institution

because my mind would never develop. She refused to believe that,

and raised me as a firm believer in miracles. It would appear the

doctor was mistaken on his prediction, as I graduated 2nd in my high

school, and later went on to work in many aspects of business,

including a technical writer for a large pharmaceutical company,

traveling several times overseas.

Mom taught me to see small miracles too, in the sparkle of dew on the

grass, in the tiniest of details inside flowers, in the songs of

birds, in the movements of clouds, in the vastness of the universe.

Although her life was not a happy one for many reasons, she taught me

to smile and see joy in my life. I learned to be happy with whatever

I had, and to enjoy simple things. That has not changed.

A later miracle was my own daughter. I was told I probably would not

be able to conceive, both from my own physical shortcomings, and due

to the fact that my husband had sustained an electrical charge in a

lightning strike. A little over a year and a half after we were

married, our daughter was born. She later experienced her own

miracles with the birth of her son, and last year triplets in spite

of having polycystic ovaries.

With the knowledge of the derivation of the word " miracle, " I now

look at miracles as times when God has smiled, rather like a loving

parent smiles when giving a child an unexpected gift. And I plan to

look at all the smiles in the world, and see just how many miracles

there are out there that I may have missed before. Actually, I think

an honest, joyful smile is a miracle in itself.

Judi