You’ve probably seen the cartoon of two scientists standing at a blackboard full of equations, in the midst of which are the words “then a miracle occurs …” Pointing at these words, one scientist says to the other, “I think you should be more explicit here in step two.”
On June 8, 2003, I was a witness to an extraordinary event that many people have called a miracle. At about 10pm that evening, my wife Vonna, who had been deemed “permanently disabled” from a highly aggressive and rapidly advancing form of crippling Multiple Sclerosis, felt a sudden surge of heat through her body, a few hours after being prayed for at our church by a so-called “faith healer”. She woke up the next morning to the astounding realization that that the disabling symptoms that had plagued her on a daily basis for the previous four years, were suddenly nonexistent. The day that I'm writing this marks eight years since every trace of an incurable and incapacitating disease instantly vanished, never to return.
Upon hearing of this story, the authors of a new book (to be released in October) called "Miracles are for Real" decided to investigate, and have included a chapter on what happened. That's remarkable in itself, because I’m always skeptical of stories like this. My first inclination is to wonder how much of the story is fabricated, distorted, or just delusional. So how did I handle it when I suddenly had to deal with the evidence on a firsthand basis? Did a skeptical, scientifically-minded person like me have to resort to a “then a miracle occurred …” explanation? Well, in response to the cartoon, let me be more explicit …
