There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.
~Albert Einstein

Okay, now let’s fast forward to the summer of 2012. Our daughter and her husband had started talking about taking their kids to Europe the next year for their annual summer vacation. Yeh, I know, lucky kids, huh?! And lo and behold, one day out of the blue, James says to me, “do you think we ought to go to Europe with them?” I was so stunned that I just sat there speechless and staring at him for a minute or two until I finally blurted out, “Are you serious? You do remember that you have to fly over the big pond to get there, right?” And he says, “Well, at least we’d all be on the same plane together if it went down.” Yeppers, that’s my James for ya. I guess a group death is better than a singular one. But just to make sure I asked him several more times if he really wanted to go, and he said yes each time.  So I called our daughter, Nikki, and the next week we began making plans and reservations for a 15 day trip to London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Paris. But alas, one more time, another of those dratted “best laid plans of mice and men going awry” things threatened to keep the now more than 50 year old dream a reality.  It was on November 9th, 2012, less that a month after my 70th birthday that I had an ischemic stroke caused by two clots in my brain. After I was rushed to the hospital by ambulance a neurosurgeon order a cat-scan and a MRI.  When the results came back, he told my family that if the clots were not removed, I would die and that the surgery to remove the clots could end my life as well. Of course, they opted for the surgery and here I am today. The Lord guided the surgeon’s hands and blessed me with even more miracles because the only residual damage I have from the stroke is that I have a little trouble spelling a word or two every now and then . Oh well, it’s a small, small price to pay for life and limb, as it were, n’est-ce pas?!

You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. ~Psalm 77:14  ✝

**Collage created by Natalie