Everday Miracles

God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.

Psalm 18:24 MSG

My friend Sadie was pushing her baby’s stroller down the quiet sidewalk of her subdivision when she saw a Rottweiler running toward her. It was a notorious neighborhood “bad dog”that was kept restrained because of his unpredictable aggression. The loose rope dangling from his neck was evidence he’d broken out. A split second was all Sadie had, with the big dog closing in fast. She shot up a microwave plea for protection and threw herself across the stroller like a human shield, bracing for the attack. Just as the dog reached Sadie, the rope around his neck flung out and wrapped around the pole of a stop sign, yanking him to a dead stop and holding him fast.

Lucky? Nope. No such thing. I call these special blessings from Papa God “grace notes.”Sweet reminders that everything that matters to us matters to Him. I borrowed the term from my twenty-five years as a piano teacher. Grace notes, you probably know, are teensy musical notes added to regular notes that aren’t essential to the melody but add breadth and depth and beauty to the music. Like the “ta” in “ta-daaaa,” grace notes are a lovely bit of flourish that aren’t necessary for maintaining musical integrity but are an exquisite addendum that augments the score in delightfully surprising ways.

That’s what Papa God’s grace notes do for us. They’re His everyday miracles, little silvery tones of grace that indelibly imprint His fingerprints in our lives. They’re sprinkled throughout the Bible, and I get super excited when Yahweh sends a customized grace note to me. You’ll hear about many of mine in this devotional. And I hope you’ll begin looking for and keeping a log of your own grace notes. Because nothing assures us of our heavenly Father’s care and grace more than His track record of grace notes in our lives.

Prayer: Immanuel (God with us, Matthew 1:23), I cannot thank You enough for Your presence in my life. You are right here with me, as Your name says, and the miracle that You love me enough to provide grace notes completely bowls me over. Amen.