*I’m very thankful that Debra Dickey-Liang sent me this post for today sharing her 2013 word of the year with us. What’s your word or theme for 2013? What’s on your mind? What are you learning right now? What will you be grateful for 11 months from now?*

During my everyday life, with its various tasks and responsibilities, I am invariably looking for, and finding, life-analogies – serious analogies, hilarious analogies, and alas, analogies that hit the nail right on the head!

The other day, I was out for my weekend walk with Maddie, and we came to one of the usual places on the trek where we cross the branch from one side of the field to the other, and I began to pick our way through the vegetation and duck under tree limbs to find the best way to accomplish that without a mishap.  As this happened to be shortly after the last snow had melted and filled the branches and creeks more than usual, the water level was definitely up, there was quite a bit of run off, and the crossing was fairly wide with several deep spots.  But tada! Never to be disappointed, just where I needed to go, I saw a number of rocks, exactly the right size, perfectly spaced, sticking up out of the water, just enough to make it possible to step across to the other side with ease.  Isn’t that the way it goes?  Coincidence?  Hardly.  My preference is to refer to such occurrences as miracles !

Now before you scoff, let me clarify my personal definition of miracle.  I most often choose to think of a miracle as something ordinary moved to a position of extraordinary.  So see, it fits!

Please don’t misunderstand, I am fully aware that God is in the BIG MIRACLE business – note, creation, the parting of the Red Sea, the birth of Jesus, feeding the 5,000, just to mention a few.  But I choose to also acknowledge such everyday, out-of-the ordinary occurrences that regularly show up in my day-to-day life, as miracles too.  Time and time again, I have had the good fortune to be the recipient of many well placed ‘rocks’ in this existence known as my life.  My fear is that I have not recognized them all, but my hope is that I have remembered to praise the Heavenly Father for each and every one that has been bestowed.

So the word I have chosen, per Bethany’s example, is ‘MIRACLES’, because, honestly, I could use a couple right now.  There are currently two concerns at the top of my prayer list for which I ‘pray without ceasing’ . . . . and I’m sure those probably won’t be the only two!  Yet I trust, and I know in Whom I believe, that, somewhere at each crossing, there will be a ‘rock’ …. or two, perfectly placed, at exactly the right spot, to make it possible to get across to the other side, perhaps with ease, perhaps not, but safely, with God in the midst of that miracle.

So my personal challenge remains, to look for, recognize, acknowledge, praise, and thank God, not just for the many ‘miracles’ in my own life, but for everyone who seeks His blessings.

“If (Because) God is my Strength,

     Though I may be on a precipice of doubt

And fear and intimidation,

     He can make my feet walk over the high places

With safety and confidence.      (Habakkuk 3:19)