Miracles on Sale

Life's Lessons - Joseph Mattappally

What’s the price of a miracle? Believe it or not, it is a simple truth that miracles are sold in distinct shapes. We have religious institutions, personality experts, corporate schools and isolated God men, all simultaneously handling wholesale deals of miracles too. Prices vary as to the size and magnitude of the requirement.

Sometimes back, I happened to go through a strange story of a little girl, who went to a drug store to buy a miracle for her sick brother. She was hardly eight years when she happened to hear her parents talk about her sick brother. They had decided to sell their house and move to an apartment, just to raise some money for a major operation, which the boy badly needed. She heard her Daddy say to her tearful Mother with desperation, "Only a miracle can save him now." Little Tess immediately withdrew to her bedroom and took out a jelly jar from its hiding place and began counting all the coins in it. It was her long time saving chest. Three times she counted the collection and then slipped out through the back door of the house and rushed to the drugs store six Blocks away.

It took some time for her to get the attention of the Pharmacist, who was seriously talking to a middle aged man. She waited patiently. Neither her scuffing noise nor her throat clearing sound could catch his attention. Finally she took a coin from the jar and banged it on the glass. That did it!

"And what do you want?" the pharmacist asked in an annoyed tone of voice. "I'm talking to my brother from Chicago, whom I haven't seen in ages," he said without waiting for a reply to his question.

"Well, I want to talk to you about my brother," Tess answered back in the same annoyed tone.  "He's really, really sick …… and I want to buy a miracle."

"I beg your pardon?" said the pharmacist.

"His name is Andrew and he has something bad growing inside his head and my Daddy says that only a miracle can save him now.  So, how much does a miracle cost?"

"We don't sell miracles here, little girl.  I'm sorry, I can't help you," the pharmacist said, softening a little.

"Listen, I have the money to pay for it.  If it isn't enough, I will get the rest.  Just tell me how much it costs."

The pharmacist's brother was a well dressed man. He stooped down and asked the little girl, "What kind of a miracle does your brother need?"

"I don't know," Tess replied with her eyes welling up. "I just know he's really sick and Mommy says he needs an operation.  But, my Daddy can't pay for it, so I want to use my money.

"How much do you have?" asked the man.

"One dollar and eleven cents," Tess answered. "And it's all the money I have, but I can get some more if I need to."

"Well, what a coincidence," smiled the man, "A dollar and eleven cents - the exact price of a miracle for little brothers."

He took her money in one hand and with the other hand he grasped her and said, "Take me to where you live. I want to see your brother and meet your parents. Let's see if I have the kind of miracle you need."

That well dressed man was Dr. Carlton Armstrong, a neuro-surgeon from Chicago. The boy’s operation was completed in his hospital without any charge and her brother went back home quite fine. Only little Tess and the surgeon knew how much it costs for a miracle for brothers. Everybody learned how coincidences transform into miracles, but……but only a few could see the miracle as blooming out of a jelly jar of pure trust.  

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