The Moving Miracles

Recently I was reminded of God's grace towards me many years ago when men from church and I helped someone move house.  There was a lot to move into the big truck before we headed to the new residence.  As we were loading boxes and furniture, the owner pulled us aside and asked us to be very careful with a particular piece of bedroom furniture:  a chest of drawers with a large mirror.  Apparently it had been passed down through generations and he urged us to take every precaution.  "I won't be upset if anything breaks--except for this," he said.  We assured him we would be as careful as possible.

Night had long since fallen when we arrived at the new place and quickly began to haul the belongings into the garage.  Due to the late hour (with midnight rapidly approaching) we did not have time to stage every piece of furniture in each room but piled everything into the garage.  The large truck had a hydraulic Tommy Lift that made the removal of items easier--but also more dangerous in the dim conditions for volunteer movers.  One of the workers who rode the Tommy Lift up somehow found his foot pinched when the deck reached the highest point.  After a loud yell and jumping around a few times, amazingly he did not suffer an injury or even damage his shoe.  That was a relief.

It was not long before God's grace was shown to our crew and the homeowner when the unthinkable happened.  I remember so clearly looking up to see the prized mirror, well out of reach and in slow motion, move away from the wall and accelerate quickly to the steel floor of the truck.  Nothing could be done.  It fell with a loud bang and we all looked at each other in disbelief, for we all heard how important it was to be careful with the mirror and dresser.  I have no idea how it fell because no one was in the truck at the time, but it fell.  We winced as we slowly raised the mirror from the deck, expecting the worst:  we was shocked when the mirror and wooden frame was found to intact without a scratch!  We were overwhelmed with gratitude God miraculously preserved our bodies and precious cargo, even though our efforts were sloppy.

After all these years, I continue to marvel over the grace of God demonstrated to us during that move.  God's goodness to me didn't stop there, for I arrived home after 1 AM and needed to rise in a matter of hours to go to work a full day in construction.  As the LORD enabled Elijah to outrun the chariot of Ahab, God gave me strength for the day despite lack of sleep.  How good it is to reflect upon God's grace, miraculous power and goodness towards His people in the Bible as well as in our lives.  He has provided each of His people a testimony of His salvation, and may we never take His grace for granted.  As the LORD revealed to Paul, His grace is sufficient for us and His strength made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).  Even when we imagined ourselves sufficient for the task, God made it plain the job was only done by His grace.  We didn't even need a broken foot or shattered mirror to learn this invaluable lesson.