A LittleHistory
Some people wouldn’t call the things my family called miracles, miracles. Coincidences or perspective might fit their worldview better. Maybe some families wouldn’t even talk about them because it would just be strange. And, maybe they’d think my family was a tad deranged, hearing voices and even seeing a heavenly apparition. But, if a mental impairment caused these occurrences, it was on both sides of the family, which some people might think explains a lot about me!
As a child, I accepted miracle stories readily, believing miracles would happen for me, too. When I was about five, I remember Brother Thomas (not his real name) taking my hands and praying over an ugly growth of warts across my knuckles. He asked if I believed God would remove them. My head bobbed up and down. “I do,” I said, and I meant it. Sure enough, the rough, ugly knobs covering my fingers disappeared in a few days.
Family history aside, I have no pedigree to write about miracles. So why do it? Well, because of a dream and a voice.
I was writing a political thriller, 420 pages into a nearly finished manuscript, when the Lord clearly spoke to me as I was watching a TV show on authors. “Write in the horror genre,” He said. I stopped dead. Horror! “Lord, I can’t even look at the cover of a Stephen King Book. You have me confused with someone.” However, I obediently put away my manuscript and started writing about a demon named Jatur. The character was more humorous than scary. That was the beginning of countless miracles and wonders, and of my novel,The Crosses of Tarsus. It’s not in the horror genre, but that nudge from God got me headed in the right direction. The manuscript took longer to finish than I’d imagined and so after completing it, I prayed for an agent. One morning, I awoke to these words, “I’m not sending you an agent, I’m giving you a ministry. A ministry of miracles.”
I had completed a manuscript, every writer’s dream, and now, I would have a ministry! Not what I wanted to hear. I’d invested years of time. I mean, I’m not getting any younger. Instead of moving up on the New York Times best seller list, I’m to have a ministry . . . of miracles.
What the heck did that mean anyway? Not long after, I found out.
Again, I was awakened. Not by a voice, but by a ‘knowing.’ You know that you know. And I just knew. When I awoke, I knew I was tohave a web presence on the Internet about wonders and miracles. That was my ministry!
I was relieved I wouldn’t be replacing Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyer anytime soon! (snicker!)
All people experience wonders and even miracles in their lives. Some recognize them, and some don’t. Some believe in God, and some don’t.
My personal belief is that God is the source of these windows to heaven, communicating through spoken and unspoken language to believers and nonbelievers. He whispers, cajoles, plants dreams, and allows marvels to happen to those who are open.
I can’t be sure of all I’ll be relaying, but hopefully you’ll catch sight of a wonder or two.
However you classify my stories, (some are now fiction, too) their images, I hope, will enlighten you about a heavenly Father who hears and respects you. Including your decision to ignore Him.
Still,his whisperis the chime in your heartbeat.
Listen, and you’ll hear.
Children of the King
We all have a history, an ethos, ancestors whose blood pulses through our veins and makes us part of a greater narrative. We didn’t know them, and many of us don’t even know about them. But their choices, like ours, endure forever. Take my Lebanese grandfather’s determination to come to America. That decision forever impacted our family. Though we sometimes think we’re an island, we are who we are because of those who came before us. And, perhaps sometimes, we are who we are, in spite of them.
Some of the storiesappearing onthese pages played out when I was a child–events that shaped who I am and, ever evolving, who I amyet to become. Ask people who I am and you’ll likely not get two answers alike. Perhaps the same is true of you. Ask people from work, from high school, from college, from church . . . Our lifecycle has many faces and countless stories, some we’d like to change. If that were even possible, it would alter who we are, right now, today. The evolving person who stares back at us in the mirror, is, for better or worse, a compilation of the hundreds of dramas and quiet moments in our lives. Hopefully, you like that person. I have come to like the person I see. And, sometimes in that mirror, I see my grandparents and my parents, my aunts and uncles, and all those who came before me.
There is someone else I share a past with. His name is Jesus. If he hadn’t been willing to die on a cross to save me from sin, my life would be completely altered. For one thing, I’d have no heavenly identity, no relationship with Him and our Father. A relationship Jesus bequeathed at the cross, giving a hapless sinner the opportunity to communicate with the Creator. Wow! After I came to know Him, I saw his imprint everywhere. I came to understand, He’s the reason I’m here. He’s the reason we’re all here! Well, that’s what I believe.
I don’t and won’t debate the reality of Christ. You must seek Him to find Him, and when you do, joyful changes occur. Things within you begin to mature and intensify. Things like: Purpose. Principle. Courage. Joy. Strength. Passion. Love. Kindness. Peace. . .
And so as we grow in our relationship to Christ, our stories grow exponentially. Our earthly life evolves intoa spiritual life, and eventually, when this fleshly body passes on, our spiritual life evolves into our eternal life. When we see one another in this bigger picture, we know we’re not an island, we’re part of God’s universe, forever bound, each life affecting others. When we accept Christ, His blood washes over us, that precious heavenly DNA, proving we are all children of the King. Not just in the here and now, but throughout eternity. xxx
My parents, Naomi and Cullen Cantees on their honeymoon.
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