Was that a miracle?

Tommy had grown up with church, Sunday morning Sunday School, worship service, coffee hour, youth group.  She had always believed that there was a God, because she had been taught so and had no particular reason to doubt that.  She was also taught that God had, in the past, worked miracles.  She never really thought about it, but she kind of figured that yes, there were miracles, done by truly extraordinary people--people like Moses and Elijah, Peter and Paul.  And of course Jesus.

Of course, it seemed like Lauren did miracles.  From the stories she told, she did them almost casually.  But then, Lauren might be one of those extraordinary people.

Was she?

She had prayed.  She didn’t even really mean to say what she said.  She meant to say that Lauren needed a Bible, but she said Bibles.  Arguably, if Lauren had been given a Bible, she probably would have given it away to one of the hundred other people who needed one, so it made some sense to ask for Bibles--but Tommy hadn’t actually thought that at the time, she just said Bibles.  And then the computer did something, and the robot truck brought cases of Bibles.

Was it a miracle?  Or was it just a coincidental computer glitch?

Is there a difference?

Wait, was that her thought?  Of course it was.  It was in her head, right?  On the other hand, if God wanted to speak to her, how would He do it?  That’s ridiculous.  Why would God want to speak to her?

But then, Lauren always thought that God had chosen her by tossing her into the multiverse and giving her jobs to do, fighting vampires, bringing civilization to people, challenging people with the truth.  Lauren might be a prophet--but then, if she is, it began with entering the multiverse.  Tommy had also entered the multiverse.  Had God also called her?  Was she, too, an extraordinary person?

Or was it really just a coincidence?

And was it not a miracle if it was a coincidence?  Did God work miracles by sleight of hand?

It struck her that in this world it seemed as if He did.  Lauren had more than once commented that when she used her magic, her prayers, she seemed to get unexpected technological solutions--praying for someone’s healing brought a medbot, praying for light turned on the internal lighting, things like that.  God was answering her prayers, bringing them to this campsite by giving Tommy the map, putting food and water in their path.

And now God had answered one of Tommy’s prayers.  It wasn’t dramatic, really; it didn’t feel miraculous--yet it was, it was barely explicable, almost impossible, unreal, but there it was.  She asked for Bibles, and she got them.

Of course, maybe there was another explanation.  Maybe Lauren had prayed for the Bibles.  Or maybe that computer that was starting to make mistakes made the mistake of sending crates of Bibles to the campground when Tommy had tried to order one.

Right.  And maybe it just knew that Lauren’s name should be on the cover of the nice one.

Tommy was not certain it was a miracle, but she wasn’t going to rule out the possibility.  Something strange and unexpected had happened, and somehow God had been involved, and somehow He had been involved because she asked Him to.

But no, she didn’t think she had worked a miracle.  That would be too much.

There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #470:  Verser Turnings.  Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter.  It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.

As to the old stories that have long been here:

The Online Games

---

Books by the Author

---

Go to Other Links

---

M. J. Young Net