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You are the miracle
Have you ever felt like you needed a miracle? In the midst of calamities global and local, shared, and private, we wish we could change the world; or at least some small part of it, but big problems can make us feel insignificant or powerless to help.
What can we do when it feels like it would take a miracle to make a difference? Perhaps the answer lies in something a theologian and physician, Albert Schweitzer once said: “Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.”
The fact is that ordinary people do wonderful things all over the world. At the Korle Bu Teaching hospital, private individuals renovate wards and theatres to save lives. At the Accra Psychiatric Hospital at Asylum Down, compassionate people deliver food items such as rice, oil and also clothing to the inmates who have run out of food. And in orphanages across the country, volunteers teach while others provide food and essentials to the children in those facilities, helping them prepare for success in their new home. There are various examples of people serving others which is catching on and spreading across the globe.
What might happen if you tried doing some small, wonderful things? It is possible that your kindness, generosity of spirit, or simply your willingness to help others could spread beyond the person you set out to bless; it may also touch others in your family, among your friends, and in your community. Just as a seed grows into something much bigger than itself, your act of kindness might make a difference much greater than you expected. That would be a miracle.
When we refuse to get entangled in a social media argument or quarrel, when we stop what we’re doing and listen to someone who’s anxious or distressed, when we reach out to someone who’s alone, when we say something encouraging or hopeful any act of kindness can be contagious. Even a smile and a compliment can catch on. And once people try being kind, they often feel so good, they continue it. We never really know how far-reaching each of these small acts of love can be.
God is a God of miracles. He often does intervene to bless His children. And it may be that the next miracle He has in mind will start with you. So, when you find yourself thinking it would take a miracle to change the world for the better, consider being that miracle.
Every year during the Christmas holiday season, we ponder the miracle of the Christmas story. And it certainly is a miraculous story; with angelic visions, a King born in a stable, and a bright new star in the sky. But do miracles belong only to stories from history, or do they still happen today? If one were to look for modern miracles, perhaps there’s no better place to look than this magical time of year, the Christmas season.
Miracles take many forms, of course, and many of them are subtle and quiet. But who can say that miracles of forgiving and trusting others, of exercising faith in the face of despair and doubt, are less powerful than a visit from an angel?
Consider, for example, the Christmas miracle of reaching out to a long-lost friend. Recently, one man was determined to find again a dear friend he had not seen in more than 25 years. They now lived thousands of miles apart, but when business took the man near his friend’s town, he drove two hours to try to meet him. Sadly, he wasn’t home, but the man was able to get his phone number, and they finally were able to talk with each other for the first time in decades. What a joyous reunion! They reconnected, they wondered why they had let so much time go by, and they committed to stay in touch.
Christmas is a time for reconnecting—with family, with friends, and with God. It is a time to rekindle faith, and that’s what makes Christmas such a miraculous season. After all, a miracle is an act of faith. And faith is so much more than wishful and positive thinking. Faith is loving, giving, and gathering in the face of opposition; faith is celebrating in the midst of heartache; faith is enjoying the wonder of this season even when life may not seem very wonderful.
Do angels still appear at Christmas time? Yes, and you and I can be the angel. In a simple but very real way, we can be the bright star that guides weary travellers with heavenly light and love, with renewed friendship and faith. What miracle could be more precious at Christmas time?
By Samuel Enos Eghan
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
