I believe in miraculous events, both supernatural and ordinary. But I sometimes don’t believe in the miracle of me. Cognitive behavioral therapy has helped. Group has helped. Prayer has helped. Then the universe stepped in and touched me. Reached into my body and pulled out my crown-of-thorns-wearing heart, mixed up my blood, resurrected nerves and muscles I had taken for granted. My heart begins to pound when I remember.

Miracles can be so simple. My small hand caresses his cheek. Patches of dry skin on his hand. The salty smell of messy hair. An angry red insect bite on the soft skin of my forearm. A bloody scratch on my right arm which I can’t recall receiving. A quarter. The smell of rain. The first kiss neither of us remembers initiating. A hug between two strangers. A flash of lightning in the distant purple horizon. All of these images and sensations are burned into my mind. I get a lump in my throat as I see and feel them again.

Something beautiful happened to me on the second weekend of Easter. I believed I wasn’t worthy of a miracle. I had all hopes but one, the one I held dearest but which I was prepared to forget. Like always, I presented my heart to him, bloody and alive. I thought I would be rejected and humiliated. But my gift was received in ways I could not have predicted.

I cry as I did that first night. They are tears of gratitude, tenderness, acceptance, transcendence.