Innholdsfortegnelse for August - September 2017 i Mysterious Ways

“Do miracles happen to you?” That’s the question we ask on the cover this issue, the answer to which is obvious for some people but not so much for others. Webster’s defines a miracle as “an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.” When a tornado bearing down on a town is inexplicably diverted toward empty land, we call that extraordinary. A miracle. Likewise, when a child with a terminal illness suddenly recovers without explanation, we attribute that healing to God. But what about the quiet miracles in our lives, those simple moments of grace and beauty? So often I overlook these subtle manifestations. The other evening I was engrossed in writing when my computer crashed. I stalked to the window in frustration. There before me was the loveliest…

I drove through the Lowe’s parking lot, trying to focus. Easier said than done with a chatty first grader in the backseat! I’d picked up my grandson Karter from school and been so distracted by his recap of his day that I missed the turn home. Hence my shortcut through the store parking lot. “Mimi,” Karter said, trying to get my attention once again. “In a minute, sweetheart,” I said. “Grandma needs to find her way out of here.” “No, Mimi, wait! Stop the car!” Karter said. “There’s a man over there on the ground!” I checked my rearview mirror. There was nobody. Karter’s overactive imagination was at it again. “Mimi, you have to go back!” Karter wouldn’t let up. Finally I turned the car around and circled back just…

Rail fell in buckets. I scrambled to buckle my two young sons into their seats in the car. I was soaked! And I couldn’t find the zebra-striped umbrella I’d bought because its bold pattern might make it difficult to misplace. But it was gone- like so many other umbrellas I’d lost. Lord, you know exactly where my umbrella is. Please bring it back to me! Two days later, I went to church to drop off forms with the children's director. On thew desk lay a hot-pink flowery umbrella. At least someone had been staying dry.… Wait a minute. I recognized the floral pattern. The vivid color. The worn handle... "Where did you get this?" I asked. “Behind the couch in the music minister’s office,” the children’s irector eplied. Is t…

You might know actress Lauren Graham from the lovable, bubbly, fast-talking characters she plays in movies like Evan Almighty and hit TV series like Gilmore Girls and Parenthood. She’s even the author of the best-selling memoir Talking as Fast as I Can. So it takes a lot to leave this star speechless. But that’s exactly what happened when Lauren recently reprised her role as Lorelai Gilmore in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Netflix’s revival of the popular series that ended in 2007. It took considerable planning to get so many members of the original cast back on set, and the show has a very devoted—and very vocal—fan base. It’s no wonder Lauren was more than a little nervous on her first day of filming. So much so that…

It popped up in my in-box one ordinary day, an article titled “The Signs Are Out There,” by Ella Price, a columnist for The Greenville Sun, a newspaper in Tennessee. Ella had written about an obscure vintage ice cream sign that had shown up in her life, not once but three different times. I wondered if she might have a story for Mysterious Ways. “Oh, the ice cream sign is just the tip of the iceberg,” Ella said when I called her up. “That kind of stuff always happens to me.” In fact, the name of Ella’s column was “Life Is Mysterious.” We got to talking. She regaled me with tale after tale. Like her chance encounter with the eccentric millionaire who stepped in to save her previous business. After…

“Kevin Kelly is dead.” I gripped the phone, hoping I’d somehow misheard. When my mother, back home in Illinois, said she had sad news, I never dreamed it could be this. “Kevin Kelly?” I said. “From high school? But…he’s only a few years older than me.” Mom read me the obituary from the local paper. Kevin had been living in Palo Alto, California, working as an energy analyst. He died of cancer, leaving behind a wife. He was only 51. I couldn’t believe it. The Kevin I saw in my mind was a high school senior at Carmel High in Mundelein, Illinois. A boy with a dazzling smile and dimples, who played guitar and drove a van. The kind of boy who could never have been interested in a lowly…

Carolyn E. Phillips The Los Angeles freeway was completely deserted, probably the one perk of driving home to Santa Barbara at 3 a.m. I’d overstayed a visit with my parents by quite a bit, but now I took full advantage of having the road to myself and pressed down on the gas to make up time. I could see the next exit coming up—but just barely. For some reason, all the lights on that part of the highway were out. Then out of nowhere…RING! A bell. And a command: Change lanes! Without a thought, I quickly switched to the lane on my left. I’d barely done it when I noticed a stalled-out car and four people struggling to push it—right in the center lane I’d been in. I hadn’t seen…

Waterlooville, England On a sunny April day, Marie Robinson visited her son Jack’s gravesite to mark the anniversary of his death. Jack had been just four years old when he’d died of an inoperable brain tumor in 2014. “I got to the cemetery and was feeling quite down,” Marie told ITV. “I said, ‘Come on, Jack. Show Mummy a sign that you are there.’” She sat on the grass beside Jack’s grave. Almost immediately, a red robin landed on her foot. Amazed, Marie snapped a photo of it with her phone. The bird flew away. But when Marie put out her hand, the robin came back and even sat on her fingertip. Marie caught the whole thing on video. “He was very brazen,” Marie said of the robin, “looking straight…

I first heard the story from my mom when I was a kid. About the tall, Aramaic-speaking archbishop from the Middle East. Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, or Mar Samuel, as he was often called. A man who came to the United States in January 1949 with four scrolls in his suitcase. Scrolls that would change the world. He first caught wind of the scrolls in Jerusalem in 1947. How Archbishop Samuel had ended up in the Holy Land is itself the stuff of legend. He was born in Syria in 1907. During the Armenian Genocide, he became separated from his family. He ended up stranded on the side of a dirt road, weak and feverish. A priest found him and brought him to safety. According to Father John Meno, who served…

Tires (1839) Chemist Charles Goodyear accidentally spilled gum rubber and sulphur onto a hot stove. The mixture hard-ened into a durable rubber resistant to heat and cold. Radioactivity (1896) Antoine Henri Becquerel left uranium crystals, a Maltese cross and a photographic plate in a dark drawer. When he retrieved them, he found the uranium had emitted radiation and produced the image of a cross on the plate. Penicillin (1928) Alexander Fleming returned from a trip to find mold in a petri dish of bacteria. The mold stopped the bacteria’s growth, giving the world its first antibiotic. Velcro (1941) While on a hunting trip, Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral noticed how burdock seeds stuck to his dog’s fur. He simulated the hooks on the seeds and, voilà, Velcro. Slinky (1943)…

“Sorry, lady. I know nothing about passcodes,” the repair guy said. “I just fix screens.” Great. Just great! The phone com-pany was supposed to mail me a shipping label, so I could send off my shattered smartphone for repairs, but the label never arrived. I got tired of waiting—and living off the grid. So I took my phone to a repair shop. Now the screen was fixed, but the passcode wasn’t working. The same code I’d been using for years! I left the repair shop in a huff and did some research online. Apparently the only way to fix my phone was to erase its “brain” completely. I’d lose all my contacts, all my photos. There had to be a better solution. I sat down on the couch, determined to…