Mormon Life - Miracle tag

CNN interviews LDS author Jason Wright on new book

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 10:05:00 -0700

source: cnn.com

In this video clip, CNN interviews Jason Wright, the best-selling author of "The Seventeen Second Miracle."

Wright explains the importance of service and how to change the world in 17 seconds.

Avalanche!

Wed, 27 Nov 2002 08:34:00 -0700

by Robert Allen
source: MormonLife.com

Mormon Life says: Nature's disasters and "accidents" may prove more enlightening than we might think.

It was our dream cabin-- 10,000 square feet of luxurious space over-looking a majestic waterfall on the backside of Mount Timpanogos, near the slopes of Robert Redford’s famous Sundance Ski Resort. It took my wife and I several years to design, plan, build and furnish it.

But it took only 10 seconds to destroy it.

I remember the afternoon as if it were yesterday. Thursday, February 13th, 1986, the day before our ninth anniversary. It had snowed about 40 inches that day. Still, my wife braved the weather for the 30-minute ride up the canyon from our home in Provo to visit our newly completed mountain home.

Taking our six-year-old son, Aaron, she left early that afternoon, stopping on the way to buy some ingredients for a cake to celebrate our special day. I was to join her later and bring Aimee, our nine-year-old daughter, and hunter, our youngest son.

My first hint of danger came at about 3:00 PM with a call from the Sundance ski patrol.

“There’s a problem at your cabin. You’d better come immediately.”

They gave no more details. Although I was behind deadline in finishing up a project, I left my computer and dashed up the canyon on snow-clogged roads. When I arrived at the ski-resort, the director of the resort and his staff greeted me with somber looks on their faces.

“There’s been a catastrophe at the cabin. We think your wife and son were there. Jump in my four-wheel drive. Let’s go.”

The cabin was adjacent to the main Sundance ski slope and was accessible only by a narrow, winding mountain road. As we frantically raced up the road, the high snow banks on either side made it seem as if we were winding through a labyrinth. As we rounded a curve in the road we met another vehicle coming down the narrow roadway. Both of us slammed on our brakes as we skidded into each other, with minor damage to both vehicles. After a brief exchange of information, we continued our race up the narrow road until the copper roof of the cabin came into sight in the distance.

I spotted my wife and son in the roadway surrounded by several members of the ski patrol. As I jumped out of the vehicle and ran toward her, she pointed to the trees above the cabin. I was shocked by what I saw.

The swath of a monster avalanche had blasted down the mountainside, leaving massive trees snapped and broken in its wake like match sticks. I glanced again at the cabin and could now see how the avalanche had ripped through our mountain home. In seconds it had blown out all the windows and piled tons and tons of snow into our huge living room, collapsing all the floors and destroying our dreams. Outside, our carefully selected furniture lay smashed to bits in the snow. It was a scene of shocking devastation, I shall never forget.

The ski patrol hustled us out of the avalanche zone quickly, as new avalanches threatened. We returned home, dazed, stunned, in shock. For month after, I wondered why we had been so unlucky as to lose our beautiful mountain home. Why did God allow such things to happen?

The story could end here. But then you wouldn’t know of the miracle that happened that day. As it was, I didn’t discover the miracle until eight months later.

At a business meeting, a colleague asked me a seemingly simple question.

“Did your wife ever tell you that my wife and your wife almost had an accident on the road to your cabin on the day of your avalanche?”

“No,” I replied. “What happened?”

“Well, my wife and our boys were staying at our Sundance cabin. Because of the heavy snow, they decided to leave and come back home. Before leaving the cabin, on of the boys suggested that they offer a prayer for a safe trip home. They bowed their heads and offered a brief prayer and then started down the narrow road.

“Your wife, driving up the road, saw my wife and the boys in our Suburban. But when my wife slammed on her brakes, the car wouldn’t stop. It skidded down the slick mountain road gathering speed.

There was nothing she could do to stop it. Finally, at the last moment before the two vehicles were to crash into each other, she turned the wheel, slamming the front side of the Suburban into the snow bank on one side of the road while the rear of the vehicle slammed into the bank on the other side…virtually blocking your wife from proceeding up the road. They tried for almost an hour to get the Suburban unstuck and finally had to get help from the ski resort.”

“That’s amazing,” I said. “My wife never told me.”

We chuckled about the “accident” and parted company. Then the force of what he had just revealed hit me. If it hadn’t been for this near “accident” my wife and son would most certainly have been killed in the avalanche!

I’ve often though about that “accident” in the roadway. I imagine my wife sitting there in frustration as the Suburban blocker her way to the cabin. I can see my friend’s wife at the scene, embarrassed by the whole situation. I see her boys upset and confused wondering if God really hears prayers.

At the time, everyone viewed this incredible avalanche and its destruction as a complete disaster. And yet, with perspective, it was obvious that they all unknowingly participated in a miracle.

Now I am slower to judge the “disasters” that occur from time to time in my life. Eventually, as more information becomes available, many of them turn out to be miracles in the making. When “accidents” happen, I try to ask myself, “What miracle is God fashioning out of this misfortune?”

Instead of wondering, “why me, God?” I simply say “Thank you, God.”

Then I wait until all of the evidence rolls in.

It Was Claire's Life

Mon, 28 Oct 2002 08:25:00 -0700

by Marianne Jennings
source: MormonLife.com

Mormon Life says: On a seemingly normal February day, the perfect storm arrived. The storm consisted of influenza. A fever, pneumonia, and a wheezing episode- all merged in the lungs of our severely disabled daughter. There are no forecasting methodologies or advance warning systems for such pulmonary disasters, so paramedics broke suburbia's monotony with the lights and sirens of a Code 3 ambulance trip to our home. Being the parent of a medically fragile child means coping with the unnatural reality that your child will likely leave this life before you do. Doctors feel compelled to discuss this defiance of chronological order. I call these Hippocratic insights "The Death Lectures."

The neurologist's death lecture in December was particularly harsh, for it featured a bell curve. "Claire," he explained, "has lived years beyond her life expectancy. You can't expect to have her much longer." Ah, the stuff of dreams. In addition to the death lectures, we've long grappled with what we thought was our selfishness in wanting Claire here with us.

Her life is one filled with indignities, the pain of an uncontrollable seizure disorder, endless medications, and painful stares from outsiders. She had charmed us from the moment of her birth, and we didn't want to lose the anchor of our lives. She has been our touchstone, a check on priorities.

But, feeling that we were her will to live and that- left to her own devices- she would choose to be free from the shackles of a body that has never been whole, we signed a "No Code" order. This is a lawyerly document that forbids use of extraordinary efforts to keep Claire alive. Claire's "No Code" specified: no intubation.

Three of us now battled in that emergency room: Claire, the perfect lung storm, and I. Her heart rate was 230, her temperature hovered near 105, and her oxygen "sats," as the ER crowd says, were at 80 despite the 100% oxygen she was breathing. She was slipping away. A doctor, who seemed to be about 12, told me so.

He gave me an ultimatum, with minutes to decide whether the "No Code" held. I needed a little help with life and death, and tried to reach my husband. The caller ID at home registered the ER phone as "unavailable," and my young son, enamored of telling off telemarketers, was doing what he had been taught to do: Answer, "Please put us on your 'No call' list," and hang up. He did so five times. Home communication lines were down, foiled by hawkers of time-sharing RV resorts and vegetable choppers.

Alone, I cuddled Claire, searching for an answer. Her struggle was a mother's nightmare. The only justification I could muster was that it wasn't right for her to leave us on a Thursday evening! I'm not sure what evening would be right, but Thursdays were out. I needed something to confirm: No "No Codes" on Thursdays.

Then a little tear drifted down Claire's right cheek. She hasn't shed a tear since she was eighteen months old. Fourteen tearless years through unimaginable pain. Now came a tear of sadness. I had my sign and my answer from a child who has never spoken.

I called in the 12-year-old resident and asked if Claire's perfect storm was reversible. His wisdom bellied his young years. "We’ll never know of we don't try."

It was not my decision to make. It was Claire's. Claire's life. Claire's choice. I gave the young doc the American thumbs up, "let's roll." I stood to one corner and watched the intubation. Its very violence made me quiver and doubt. That thin, tiny body with porcelain skin convulsed. That moment still flashes through my mind and I experience the same weak legs and heavy heart I felt then.

But the perfect storm met the perfect response. She battled her way back from the brink. Claire, the outlier, defied the odds. Foolish doctors! She has no bell curve. Claire will live her life on her own terms. She wields power on its length.

As she fought and I sat helplessly by, eventually matching my breaths with those of her respirator, I had an epiphany. Claire's life has meaning and purpose, and she knows it. She brings out the very best in every life she touches. Through her, I saw the compassion and dedication of the doctors, nurses, and therapists at Phoenix Children's Hospital who fought as hard as Claire did. Claire showed me the selflessness of a sister who took over my children for that week. My daily conversations with my parents about Claire had a spirituality I shall cherish forever. Claire allowed me to see my colleagues, who stepped up to cover for me, in a whole new light. From deans to staff, they helped and they cared. Claire showed us neighbors putting out our trash as we coped at the hospital. Claire's teachers, school nurses, school staff, and bus drivers were with us. There were so many prayers for this being, far too tiny for her fifteen years; their power was felt in her hospital room.

Decisions about life and death are not ours to make. They are made by a higher Authority who works for the good of the whole, and who knew the good the whole can show. Yielding to the power and wisdom of that higher source is the humbling lesson of Claire's life. And she knows it. Finally, her mother knows it, too.