The first miracle in my life (that I was aware of) was the instantaneous, inexplicable answer to someone else’s prayer that forever changed my life, my perspective, and my faith.
It was the fifth day of an excruciatingly painful migraine headache. I couldn’t take the pain anymore. It was pretty typical for me to have a migraine once a month back then, but none had ever lasted longer than two days. After five days, the pain was unbearable, my eyesight was affected, I couldn’t function, and I was desperate. I thought that I couldn’t take the pain one more day, and what if it never went away? What if I was going to be in this condition for the rest of my life? I knew I couldn’t live that way.
It was very difficult to raise my head up off the pillow When I tried, it felt like knives were being thrust through my head. I wasn’t able to get up to take care of my little girl. I felt like I was failing—failing my child, failing at the job I was sure I’d lose, and failing at life.
As I thought about ending the pain by taking my life, I thought about how my ex-husband and his new wife would wind up raising my daughter. I thought about who would find me and what a mess this would make. I tried to think of ways to alleviate the pain, but five days of excruciating pain had worn me down. I couldn't think straight, and I didn't have any fight left in me anymore. As I was contemplating all of this, the phone rang.
The phone was right next to my bed so I didn't have to lift my head. I picked up the phone, and it was a doctor's office that specialized in the treatment of headaches where I'd been on a waiting list for a clinical trial for almost 2 years. They were calling to let me know that they'd had a cancellation on Monday and asked if I would like to take the appointment. Can you imagine the timing of that call? I hadn’t heard from these people in nearly 2 years, and at the exact moment that I was thinking of taking my own life on that Friday afternoon, it was as if God Himself arranged for them to call me.
With the glimmer of hope of a cure three days away, I got myself up. In my sweats and just looking as ugly as a human could look, I drove myself to work. I have no idea why I did that, but I in a zombie-like daze, I felt led to go to the office. All eyes turned toward me when I walked through the front door having had no shower in five days, wearing no makeup, and with my hair a matted mess.
I walked through the office all the way to the back, with everyone watching me in total silence. I walked into the private office of one of the owners of the company with tears rolling down my cheeks. My boss stood up with an alarmed look on his face, asking what was wrong. I was barely able to whisper as I told him how much pain I was in. I remember that he looked very uncomfortable, as though he didn't know what to do with me. He ushered me out of his office and out the side door of the building.
I thought that as he was escorting me outside in an attempt to end the spectacle that I had created in the office. As we walked past his assistant, he tapped her shoulder and she popped up out of her cubicle and followed us outside. When she joined us, I thought, “This is it, I’m getting fired with everyone watching. What was I thinking coming here like this?”
I was in so much pain, my vision was blurred, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I probably would have gone along with anything that I thought would give me some relief, so when this man offered to pray, I gave a barely audible, “okay.” He asked me where it hurt, so I reached up on the back of my neck to show him. I was stunned when he stepped up directly in front of me and reached both hands behind my head onto my disgustingly sweaty, un-showered neck. I watched awkwardly with wide eyes as his secretary put one hand on my shoulder and the other on his shoulder, like they had done this before.
Both my boss and his assistant closed their eyes and started to pray. He quoted scriptures about healing that I had either never read or had never paid attention to before. As he prayed, his assistant seemed to be mumbling something under her breath. She wasn’t speaking loud enough for me to hear what she was saying, and all I could think of was how rude it was that she was talking while he was praying.
I had no idea that he was a youth pastor at his church or that his assistant attended the same charismatic, Christian church. As my boss prayed, I felt the sensation of heat on my neck. Then the stabbing pain subsided. Then, the most amazing thing happened. My blurred vision was gone. My eyesight was totally clear. The amazing part is that I had taken my glasses off because I was crying. I had worn corrective lenses since I was 9 years old. But beginning that day at the age of 27 and well into my 40’s, I had inexplicably perfect eyesight!
This instantaneous, inexplicable resolution to a seemingly impossible situation made me change the way I thought about miracles, about God, and about prayer. It has led me on a journey for the past 35 years of trying to learn as much as I could about answered prayer and our role in it.
Since that day in 1986, I’ve experienced many more miracles of a different type. These are the answers to prayer that appear as coincidences or as the types of things that just seem to work out beautifully over time—miracles nonetheless.
The most prominent of thirty years of miracles are that my husband completely recovered from what doctors called an “incurable” infection that was in his blood. My daughter gave birth to two healthy babies after five physicians told her that she’d never be able to have children. My son-in-law transformed over the years from an atheist to being a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. And there have been many financial miracles that would fill pages, and possibly leave you thinking that I was lying, bragging, or delusional.
The most profound miracle, though, is one that I had never thought of as a miracle, but it is. It’s that of my life story! I was left with a neighbor by my mother when I was a young girl. Neither my mother or father, who had split up, ever returned for me. I was placed in the care of a mentally ill man and an alcoholic and addicted woman who were my maternal grandparents. My childhood was a dysfunctional roller-coaster of poverty, homelessness, and abuse. No one who knew me as a child could have predicted what God would do.
The story fills my book, Succeed Because of What You’ve Been Through, but the big pictures is that God took this unwanted and unloved little girl and surrounded her with a beautiful group of family and friends. He grew this homeless little girl who searched for food in trash cans into a woman who built two successful businesses and owns a home on a hill overlooking the ocean. He took this child raised in chaos and filled her with peace and joy that can never be extinguished by external circumstance. The truth that I have a beautiful life now is the grandest miracle of all.
In the years since that first miracle that I received, not as a result of my faith (I had almost none), but as a result of someone else’s, I have studied the accounts of every miracle recorded in the Bible. I learned that God, in His infinite wisdom, has chosen to constrain His power to the answering of faith-filled prayer that aligns with His purpose. Therefore, if we want to see miracles in our lives, iit is imperative that we sincerely pray for the resolutions to the problems and challenges that we see. I learned that it’s not on us to tell God how to do it, but rather to let Him know what we hope to see, or something even better, to leave the ways and means to Him, and to act on His prompting to do whatever He has designated as our part in the fulfillment of His good plans and purpose.
I learned the reasons why some prayers are not answered, and I learned about what I call the keys to answered prayer—I wrote a book by that name to share what I’d learned. But the most profound thing I learned, through my studies and my life, is that we simply cannot out-give God!
When we give our time, talents, and resources with loving kindness, expecting nothing in return, He gives back to us in multiples in His currencies, which are peace, joy, good relationships, health, and financial provision to fulfill the purpose for which we were born and perfectly equipped.
You’ve got one job in this life! It’s to find and fulfill the purpose for which you were born and perfectly matched. This podcast is to help you find and fulfill your purpose and to enjoy the real success that accompanies it. Subscribe now and share this with a friend. Listen at www.rhonda.org/podcast or wherever you get good podcasts.
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Rhonda Sciortino, author of Succeed Because Of What You've Been Through, used the coping skills and character traits acquired in an abusive childhood to create her successful life. She now helps others find their purpose and live their authentic success.
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