There’s No Such Thing as Ordinary Life

I witnessed — indeed, participated in — a miracle this morning.

It began with me opening my eyes. This neuromuscular feat, which required millions of years of evolution just so that I could have eyelids to open, was made possible for me by a pure gift of genetic donation from my parents, who were themselves the beneficiaries of a lot of struggle and toil from a lot of other ancestors; as well as a lot of trouble taken by God both in creating and redeeming us, not to mention holding the whole field of reality in being from nanosecond to nanosecond without so much as a thank you from us.

Anyway, I opened my eyes and something astounding happened: They worked! I saw not just light, but things! It turns out I don’t just have a photosensitive spot but actual eyes! Two of them! They are arranged on the front of my head so that I can not only see, but see in a sort of stereo that makes it easy to estimate the distance or speed of whatever I might see. What’s more, I can see color! I could see my curtains! I could see the face of the woman I love! I could see branches of an alder tree that has grown outside my window for years by means of a mysterious process involving wind, sun, and rain that nobody really understands fully. I saw water, a mysterious chemical capable of bestowing life on organic matter, falling freely from heaven! It was astounding!

Now, you might think, “That’s enough for any person to be grateful for a lifetime!” But so lavish is God’s gift to me that I haven’t even gotten to the miracle part yet (though when you think about it, just seeing is quite miraculous and not a bit “explained,” merely because some guys in lab coats have worked the names of some of the chemical processes involved). No. The miraculous part was this: I literally stuck my legs out of bed, put my toes on the floor, hoisted myself to my feet, and walked across the room.

It was actually easy, despite the immense symphony of coordination between brain, balance organs, nerves (both sensory and motor), muscles, joints, connective tissue, blood, lymph, endocrine, digestive, skeletal, excretory, and respiratory systems that had to be humming at peak capacity for me to perform this prodigy. A comprehensive miracle of quadrillions of chemical reactions had to take place within a few seconds, all in cooperation with my rational soul and a supernatural spirit. Indeed, as I was performing this prodigy, I also yawned and — get this — said, “Good morning,” a feat which almost none of earth’s inhabitants have been able to do until just a few seconds ago, if you compress the history of the earth down to a single day. Endless eons have passed, and no creature on the face of the earth — until a few moments ago, in the geologic time scale — had ever uttered those words, let alone done so while walking upright on two legs.

I’m given to reflect on these wonders because, as I write, my thoughts and the thoughts of hundreds of other people are much preoccupied with a dear young family friend named Lorna Bernhoft, who accidently fell through a skylight on October 12, sustaining head injuries and a broken back and leg. She has been greatly supported on a vast cushion of prayer as her team of doctors has labored to save her. She has had part of her skull removed to ease brain swelling. She has had a respirator and a tracheotomy and batteries of antibiotics to fight off pneumonia. She has slowly regained consciousness since then and has astonished the doctors not only with the speed of her recovery, but with the recovery of her abilities to communicate — and with the hope that, within six months, she may well be walking again.

Her family is, of course, overjoyed at the news, but they also know she’s got a long haul ahead of her before she arrives at the day where she can perform the miraculous prodigy I did this morning: walking across the room. When and if that day comes, terms like “normal” and “ordinary” will be stripped of their current meaning and acquire the almost blinding brilliance they must have had for Adam in the Garden before the fall and the griming dullness of what the devil has taught us to call “ordinary life.”

Everything — absolutely everything — is charged with the glory of God if we have the eyes to see it. Give thanks for every boring, dull, overlooked and ordinary thing in your life. As you do, say a prayer for Lorna and all those who, in the twinkling of an eye, have been robbed of the power to open their eyes, breathe, say “good morning,” or walk across the room. It’s all an astonishing gift.