5 Moments That Changed Everything: Miracle Mail | Ep. 81

0:01Speaker 1:They get out of their car, they go into this crowd and they're with their three little kids, and they go to find a picnic table and they look down and their three year old daughter is now where to be found.

0:12Speaker 2:And I can't find her. She's not anywhere.

0:21Speaker 1:This is the Miracle Files. I'm Emily Jones.

0:25Speaker 2:And I'm Holly Worthington. We're two sisters who love a captivating true story, but we're also seeking more light in our lives.

0:33Speaker 1:So we're on a mission to find and share unforgettable, uplifting stories of God's miracles. We hope you'll join us on this journey.

0:44Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Miracle Files. Today, we're going to share five stories that we're sent in by our listeners. We've done this a couple of times and we love it because it gives us a chance to share more of these stories we really want to share.

0:57Speaker 1:Yeah, we have so many stories just waiting to be and so we decided to make this a monthly episode. But we need a name for it. We haven't been able to come up with anything. We have miracles in the news, and we got the regular Miracle Files episodes, but if you can think of anything, please in our listeners to help us out. We're hired for this episode. We work hard, we've got creators block, so come up with a name. Tell us what you think we should call this episode. But we're excited to be able to share more of these yes stories with you.

1:26Speaker 2:We really are okay. So our first story is from one of our listeners named Rachel Schumacher. And one day Rachel hurts her ankle and she goes to a neighbor to borrow an air cast. And she has a daughter who has non verbal autism. So she was telling her neighbor how she has to work and it's fault break and she doesn't know what she's going to do with her daughter, and her neighbor, being sweet and kind, offers to watch her daughter for her, and Rachel's kind of hesitant.

1:54Speaker 2:She's worked as a nine on one operator. She knows that these kids with autism can disappear fast. But her neighbor assures her she's got five kids of her own. It'll be fine, you know, And they're both thinking, yeah, it'll be okay. So Rachel agrees to it, and this is what Rachel says happens next. While I was getting her dress this morning, I had picked out a mint green shirt for my daughter. I very clearly hear the Holy Spirit say dress her in something brighter. I pick out a hot pink shirt instead, breathing a prayer, Lord, keep my baby safe. My daughter was playing beautifully with my neighbor's kids for hours. Suddenly they realize she was nowhere in sight. They scoured the house and realized that she must have left out the front door.

2:39Speaker 1:Scary.

2:40Speaker 2:So I'm going to pause right here for just a minute to just kind of summarize what's happening. But as you can imagine, this is a terrifying moment. Yeah, But to make matters worse, this little girl hasn't just disappeared out the door. She's gone out the door to one of the busiest streets in the city, and it's raining and the streets are wet, and she makes her way down to one of the busiest intersections around. She manages to get across it, and right then another neighbor looks out the window and sees this little pink shirt going by.

3:12Speaker 2:So she goes out, this other neighbor and gets this little girl, brings her into her house. Meanwhile, back at the house, everyone is searching frantically for this little girl. The first neighbor's husband goes outside searching for her. He's yelling for her as he runs through the streets, and this other neighbor who has the little girl sees him and tells him she has her. I'm sure he was so relieved.

3:36Speaker 1:Goodness, I'm sure.

3:37Speaker 2:The police arrive, and of course Rachel is oblivious to all of this. She's at work and doesn't even know what's happening. So here's what Rachel says happens next. I've just finished up my lunch, but my neighbor calls me. She says, my husband is on the way to your house with your daughter and a cop. They live less than a block away. In my clunky boots, I drop what I'm working on and run for the door. My fastest speed isn't very fast, but this was different. I was sprinting the moment I just get to my front gate, it swings open. Here's my daughter in my neighbor's arms with a cop, just like they said. I was laughing and crying as they told me that she had crossed a major intersection to get to where someone had spotted her.

4:20Speaker 2:It was a miracle she wasn't hit. Another neighbor happened to be looking at it exactly the right time to see her pink shirt. When they grabbed her, she didn't take off running, and the cop was amazing.

4:32Speaker 1:Wow, so fortunate that that neighbor saw her, that she thought to put her daughter in the pink shirt. Just all the little details, you know, the hindsight.

4:40Speaker 2:Yeah, it's amazing. How when you just listen to that voice, you know, the Holy Spirit just tell you these things. I mean, you got to listen to that. You have to listen because the smallest detail can make the biggest difference. Yeah.

4:54Speaker 1:Absolutely.

4:55Speaker 2:Afterwards, Rachel works with the Sheriff Department to enroll her daughter in Pro Life Saver, which is an awesome program that provides GPS inkle monitors for children that can get lost easily.

5:08Speaker 1:Yeah, such a good idea. Yeah all right. Our next story comes also from Rachel Schumacher. She sent it two stories.

5:16Speaker 2:Yay, thank you, Rachel.

5:17Speaker 1:Yeah, this is a story actually that her parents wrote for their children. So if you hear them referring to each other as mom and dad, that's because they wrote it for their children. But they also were happy to share it. With us and with all of you. So this is a story that took place back in the nineteen nineties in Pennsylvania, when Rachel's dad was actually working an hour and fifteen minutes away in Maryland. And in Maryland it began to rain, but in Pennsylvania it began to snow. And in Pennsylvania the snow was getting thicker and thicker, and the roads were becoming impassable. And Rachel's mom knew that he would be driving into this impossible situation, so she tried callings work to say, hey, just stay, it's safe to stay there, but he had already left, and this is before most people had cell phones, so there was no way to get a hold of him.

6:07Speaker 1:And here's what her mom wrote. Seven point thirty came and went, the time when he should have been home under normal circumstances. But these weren't normal circumstances. By eight PM, I was putting the kids to bed, assuring them that Dad would be home soon. I wasn't sure if it was true, but there was no sense in worrying them. With the house quiet, I went into the dark living room and looked out over the great expanse of snow that reached from our front porch to the tree line.

6:36Speaker 1:Somewhere in between was the road, but it blended into the great whiteness. Under other circumstances, I could have enjoyed the beauty of it. But tonight my beloved was somewhere out there, and my mind went over all the things that could go wrong. There was nothing I could do, nothing except pray. So I knelt at the front window, praying more fervently than I ever had before. God, please bring Kurt home safely, Keep his car on the road for the whole trip. Please keep reckless drivers away from him.

7:08Speaker 1:Assign an angel to each one of his wheels to keep him on the road and allow the car to pull into our driveway. Keep him safe, and bring him home, not just close to home, all the way into the driveway. Okay, so pause here for a moment. I just want to say I have had those moments where I have worried about my husband on Sunday or when he's late for work, and it can be very scary. So I'm feeling for her right now.

7:34Speaker 2:I have to. I have said these prayers before, where I've prayed for my loved ones to be protected.

7:39Speaker 1:And the longer it goes, You're like, where are they? Are they?

7:42Speaker 3:Okay?

7:43Speaker 1:So I know what she's going through. Okay. So meanwhile, Rachel's dad has left work, and the snow is just becoming thicker and thicker, and it's becoming harder and harder to drive. And here's what her dad said happened. Her dad wrote, when I got to town, I was beginning to think I might not make it home. The car sat low to the ground and was having a hard time maintaining traction and breaking through the deep snow. As the car struggled along, I encouraged it. You're such a good little car. Keep it up. Only twelve more miles and we'll be home. And when you get me home, I'm going to put you in the garage.

8:25Speaker 2:It's like the little engine who could.

8:27Speaker 1:Yes, He's like, you can do it, just go you can do it. You can do it. Okay, so he continues. The car was barely moving forward when I got to Eisenhower Drive in Hanover. It was only twelve more miles, but it wasn't looking like the little car could do it. There was no one out. But as I came to the stoplight at home depot, a big plow truck pulled out of the parking lot in front of me. It wasn't plowing, but it was breaking a path through the snow and leaving tire tracks for me to drive in. Okay, So Rachel's dad then goes on to explain how he kept wondering if this plow truck was going to turn and he would have to then go on on his own.

9:06Speaker 1:But it was like every turn this plow truck just kept making the same turns as him, or going straight when he used to go straight, and it got him within half a mile of his house and he could not be leave it. So eventually the truck does turn, and without the truck making the path, he could barely drive. It took him thirty minutes to go half a mile. But eventually he gets to the driveway and he tries to pull in to his garage and he can't do it. So here's what he wrote happen next. I waited the last thirty feet on my own property to the front door.

9:38Speaker 1:I opened the door and everything was quiet. I couldn't believe it. My wife wasn't sitting up worried about me. She was in bed. I'm glad to see me being stuck in the storm. Didn't keep you up, I said, mostly to tease her. I wasn't worried. She responded, I prayed for God to send angels to guide the car, and God told me you'd be safe. So I went to bed.

9:58Speaker 2:Oh.

9:59Speaker 1:Then he said, I promised the car that I would put it in the garage when I got home, but it got stuck at the end of the driveway and I couldn't move it another inch. Then she says, I only prayed for you to get home. I didn't pray for you to get in the garage.

10:14Speaker 2:And my little car.

10:15Speaker 1:And then he says, the next morning, I looked the car over. It was completely on our property, out of the road. The snow under was solidly packed from the ground all the way up into the chassis. The little car didn't get me home. God did, with the help of my wife's prayers and some angels.

10:32Speaker 2:I love that. Yeah, that's such a legacy to leave for their children too, and their grandchildren to read their grandparents' testimony. I know.

10:41Speaker 1:Am amazing that in that moment, when she was so desperate, she could pray and get the comfort that, Okay, God is going to take care of him. He's going to provide this snowplow that's going to lead him the entire way. Like how incredible. I know.

10:53Speaker 2:I love that she went from worry to just sleeping peacefully in bed, like.

10:57Speaker 1:Gaw it, I thought you'd be up worried.

11:00Speaker 2:She knew it, she knew it was going to be okay.

11:02Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So our next story comes from Larisa Darrington, and this happened more than thirty years ago. Larisa and her husband were living in Montana with their three young children, and one September weekend, they decided to make the drive to Shelley, Idaho to go to this celebration called Spud Days.

11:19Speaker 2:Hell people, by the way, Shelley, Idaho is only like half an hour, not even that from where we grew, I.

11:25Speaker 1:Know, right, And they go there to celebrate potatoes because what else does what else do you celebrate?

11:30Speaker 2:Because that's what Shelley's all about, Yes, buds, potatoes.

11:35Speaker 1:I have a good friend that went to Shelley High School and their high school mascot was the rest of potatoes. Shout out to any rest of potatoes out there. Okay, So anyway, this morning they were going to the Spud Day celebration with all these people getting together to celebrate potatoes. And as they were driving there, Larisa had this kind of nervous feeling like something was going to go wrong, but she kind of pushed it aside. Everything's going to be fine. So they make it to the Spud Days.

12:04Speaker 1:They get out of their car, they go into this crowd and they're with their three little kids and they go to find a picnic table and they look down and their daughter, who is also named Shelley by the way, three year old daughter, is nowhere to be found, Ah amongst this huge crowd of people. Right terrifying, and so instantly Larsa and her husband start to panic and they're like, where is she? What happened? They start to look for her, and here's what Larisa said. We actually have this one in video, so here's a video of Larisa explaining what happened.

12:37Speaker 3:Next, the two of us would take turns going to look through the vendors, and we contacted the little police booth and told them we had a missing child. And I would go out and look.

12:48Speaker 4:I couldn't sit and so Scott would spend most of the time just sitting with the kids while I went and looked because I couldn't not look, and I just kept calling it. And I come back as she here, and honestly to me and my mama heart, I thought it was at least forty five minutes, but it was probably.

13:11Speaker 3:More like ten or twenty. And finally, lots of prayer, lots of prayers. I'm going up and down and looking for this little girl. I get back and my husband meets me and he goes, she's here. We found her, and I couldn't even hardly look at her. I had been so scared and so afraid, and so upset because of how scared I was. Anyway, he told me what had happened was she had gotten behind us and lost us. So she turned around, went back to the busy highway, crossed it to find Grandpa's care and she was at Grandpa's with her hand on the car and just waited there.

14:04Speaker 3:And this man came along and he recognized the car, and he knew that it belonged to my father in law.

14:12Speaker 1:He knew it was a Darrington.

14:13Speaker 3:Car, so he figured the little girl had to be a Derrington and she went with him. Of course, three year old he took her by the hand, helped her cross the busy road and went looking for Darrington's. That was our miracle that she was able to cross that road, and the person to find her knew that car and brought her back to us.

14:39Speaker 2:And that's my that's my miracle.

14:43Speaker 3:Thirty years thirty some years later, it's still who still gets me in my heart. And I am so grateful to know that we have a God of miracles.

14:56Speaker 2:I'm so grateful to know that as well. Yeah, what a miracle. And I'm so so so gret grateful that that happened.

15:03Speaker 1:Yeah, a miracle that she was able to cross the road safely, but also this man who happened to recognize the car and come upon her among all, I mean, it was so many people.

15:13Speaker 2:Were there, Yeah, for someone that just happened to know where she belonged.

15:17Speaker 1:Such a miracle. Such a fun story.

15:19Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, So our next story is from Tanya Ferguson, who I grew up with. I actually have known Tanya probably more than I've known most people in my life, because I've met her in first grade.

15:33Speaker 1:Wow, she's known you longer than I have.

15:36Speaker 2:Yeah, seriously, Like she and her friend Terry befriended me, and I was so grateful. I didn't know anybody. I was at recess and Tanya and Terry came up and said, do you want to play with us?

15:46Speaker 1:Thanks Tonya, Thanks Sonya.

15:48Speaker 2:Yes. I have fond memories of Tanya Ferguson. Okay, so just a little background on her story. It was a hot afternoon in July of twenty fourteen. Her three older kids were at a nearby so Tanya loaded up her three youngest kids into a car to take them to the park to meet the older kids. And she left her house and was driving through the neighborhood and this is what she said happened. Next. I turned bright and saw some man walking towards us. I'd never seen him before, and he looked very ragged, wearing long sleeves, carrying a bag, and was really out of place. I slowed down for only five seconds so I could see where he was going.

16:28Speaker 2:He looked directly into my eyes as I passed him. It gave me a really strange, almost dreadful feeling. I looked into my passenger mirror, my rearview mirror, and then turned around to see out the back of my Yukon to see where he had gone. He had disappeared. Where did he go? I thought that was so weird, but okay, I just continued on my way. I turned right onto a main road in town. As I was getting closer to another main crossroad, I could tell that there was a pickup coming up next to us that was going a lot faster than he should be going on a thirty five mile.

17:00Speaker 1:Per hour road.

17:01Speaker 2:Then some lady in a van pulled out of the grocery store parking lot right in front of us, without even looking for cars. I slammed on my brakes and was grateful that I was paying attention. At the same time, the little pickup sped past us and stormed ahead, right into the side of the van. The pickup left the road for a second and then started rolling backwards. The man in the pickup was knocked out and had blood streaming down his head. Now that I think about it, I wonder if he had a medical emergency and had already passed out with his foot on the gas. A lady and a bunch of kids got out of the van, so I was thinking they were all okay. I thanked Heavenly Father for protecting us in that moment. After I left this accident that I was miraculously not a part of, I headed to the park. My heart was racing all the way, and I was holding back tears so I could drive. The reality of this experience really hit after I got to the park. If I hadn't slowed down for those five seconds to find out about that stranger and where he was going, it would have been us in that accident, along with the man in the pickup.

18:07Speaker 2:Without those extra five seconds, I would have been in front of that parking lot outlet, and the van would have hit the side of my yukon where my six year old was sitting. Sorry, and he probably wouldn't be here today. I know that man walking down the street was an angel who was sent to stallus for just five whole seconds so that we wouldn't be in that car accident. Oh sorry, I had a hard time getting to that one.

18:36Speaker 3:Well.

18:36Speaker 1:It's an amazing it's an amazing story about how you know something in hindsight that might have seemed peculiar, out of place, felt strange. It really wasn't just by happenstance that she happened to see this man. I mean, she even said afterwards that she asked her kids about this and they never even saw that person. She was the only one in the car who even saw him.

18:55Speaker 2:So yeah, And you know, it's so interesting because you'd think like an angel sent to you to help with this would be like, you know, full of light and have wings and dressed in the nicest whatever.

19:09Speaker 1:Yeah, but this.

19:10Speaker 2:Was just a plain clothed man that she was wondering about and didn't know who he was or where he'd come from. And I think sometimes that's how it works, like it's just ordinary things that God works with a lot of times, ordinary people even.

19:24Speaker 1:Yeah, he can use anything. We've learned that he can use anything.

19:28Speaker 2:Yeah. All right, well, thank you, Tanya. It was so great to hear from you.

19:33Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay, So our last story comes from Markel Smith. Markel had been going through a really hard time in her life for several years. She'd gone through a divorce, several miscarriages, and life just seemed harder than she could ever imagine it would be. But eventually she got remarried and she gave birth to a baby boy, and everything seemed like it was right in the world. Here's what Mark Hell wrote on November seventeenth, twenty twenty three, our baby boy was born. He was perfect. He tied our family together and brought so much joy immediately. The first twenty four hours he was in the room with us, he was a loud breather and kept getting louder. We hadn't named him yet, and I joked that we should name him Strider because he had a strider when he breathed.

20:24Speaker 1:As time went on, he got more congested. The pediatrician in the hospital told us it was just newborn congestion and he would clear it out. We were cleared to go home. Then there was a shift change. A new nurse came into our room and almost immediately said she felt something was wrong with our boy. She paged the nick you team to check him out. Initially, the nick you team hooked him up to monitors and said he was fine, just newborn congestion. Like the doctor said, my mom happened to be a nick you nurse in that hospital, and her coworkers were chatting with me about what it was like working with her. While we were talking, our new baby started struggling to breathe. His oxygen went down to the seventies. The NICKU team who had just said he was okay to go home, quickly changed their minds and he was taken to the NICKU. He still didn't have a name at this point. He was taken from us and hooked to so many monitors. An X ray was done that revealed his organs had formed backwards, his heart and liver were on the wrong side. All his organs were flipped. The doctor on staff happened to remember

21:30Speaker 1:learning about a condition called primary ciliary dyscnesia in metals.

21:35Speaker 2:Hard to say.

21:36Speaker 1:I don't know if I'm saying that right discinesia in medical school. He had never seen it, but I believe the spirit helped him remember this specific condition. Genetic testing was immediately done to confirm this diagnosis. And pause here for a moment. She basically goes on to explain that this is a condition where there's like celia in your body and your lungs that is supposed to help you clear out the mucus and it wasn't working properly. And also with this condition sometimes the organs can be on the wrong side of the body. So when they did the X ray, that's how they were able to figure out.

22:09Speaker 1:That's what he had, and so they immediately got him a sea pat machine and the nurses started suctioning mucus out of his lungs. And here's what Markel wrote, I shuddered to think what would have happened if we had taken him home. That nurse truly saved his life. We named him Malachi, which means messenger from God, and I truly believe he has a message for us. That little boy is two and a half.

22:35Speaker 2:Now.

22:36Speaker 1:He has a vest he has to wear every morning and night that shakes his little body to help mucus move. He has a handful of medications he takes, and he's always at the doctor. But he is the happiest kid I've ever met. Nothing seems to get him down. I see that as a miracle in itself. He has a constant cough, and while his cough is not contagious, his smile is. He taught us that even when life is hard, we can be happy.

23:03Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, I love that.

23:05Speaker 1:Yeah soul, Okay, Yeah, So grateful that that nurse had that feeling, because who knows what would have happened if they would have taken him home and not realized that this isn't normal.

23:14Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is one of those stories where he didn't receive this instant healing, you know, where he never had to worry about this again. But look at the miracles that are there even in the midst of the hard stuff. And if we can all do that, I mean, it's just so powerful.

23:32Speaker 1:We'll see them, see miracles everywhere, see them all right, Well, we want to thank you guys for joining us today. We also want to thank these listeners who sent us their stories and anyone else sending us their stories. We truly are inspired and grateful for everything you do. If you haven't already subscribed to our podcast, leave us a review. We'll see you next time.

23:51Speaker 2:We'll see then, thank you for joining us. If you have a miracle to share, contact us at the Miracle files dot com or find us on social media. We release new episodes each Monday.

24:03Speaker 1:Yeah, so don't forget Miracle Mondays. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and YouTube for amazing video content as well.

24:11Speaker 2:Join us next time as we discover more of God's miracles, and don't forget to look for His light in your own lives.