Uncle Rod and the miracle

This past weekend, my mother's side of the family gathered for a reunion of sorts. For the first time in years, they gathered for an early Thanksgiving celebration together. It was a time of stories and memories. I wish I could have been there, but one of my cousins called and let me join in the party for a few minutes by phone. It was wonderful.


It brought to mind how his father, my Uncle Rod, was transformed by a conversation in the last months of his life. Here's the story:


My mother first started praying for her beloved brother when she was a young girl, and for the next 30+ years, she kept on praying for him to know the God she loved. She wanted him to have the peace in his heart that she had, the comfort in hard times, but he simply was not interested.


She took him to hear Billy Graham and fantastic preachers. He fell asleep. She gave him Bibles and wonderful, well-written books. They went unopened.  She prayed for God to work a miracle in his heart, but outwardly nothing happened.  Rod would tell her he wasn't such a bad person--and he really wasn't a bad person. He would say he really didn't need that much forgiveness.


Finally Rod was 46 and facing open heart surgery. My mother knew she wanted him to live forever with the Lord more than she wanted him to survive the surgery, and her prayer was different this time.  Instead of pleading with God for Rod's to come to know the Lord, her prayer and her heart was changed. Now, she truly believed that God was going to bring Rod to himself at last. She sensed a voice behind her saying, "It will be done."


Within days, Rod called my father. Rod and his family lived in a remote area on a ranch that was far from a main road. He told my dad, "The strangest thing happened. A man came by the ranch, and I was so glad to see him. I invited him in for a cup of coffee, and he said yes. We sat and talked about many things, and then we started talking about God, and that I needed to believe in him."


My father asked him, "What do you think about what he told you?"


Rod: "I believe it."


Dad: "Do you know what that means? You're a believer."


Rod: "I am?


Dad:  "Do you know who the man was?"


Rod: "No, I ran after him, to ask his name, and I couldn't find him. I asked the neighbors, 'Did you see that man?' and they said, 'What man? We didn't see anybody.' I even described him to people who lived farther away down the road, and nobody knew anything about him. No one had seen him come or go."


In the remaining months of his life, Rod was a different person. He talked openly of his new faith and about God's mercy toward him. Whether the man he'd had a conversation with was an angel or the Lord himself, we will have to wait to find out. At the age of 47, while riding his horse, with his cigar in his mouth and his boots on, he suffered a massive heart attack, and went to meet the God he had just become acquainted with.


My mother's prayers have never been the same. After seeing the difference between pleading with the Lord and believing the Lord, she has never gone back.


How about you?  Do you have a miracle to believe God for in your life? What's holding you back from trusting him fully?


For you are great, and perform great miracles. You alone are God.

Psalm 86: 10