A Hundred Million Miracles
Adapted from the April 26, 2026 Firebird Gathering Video
A reflection on everyday miracles, grief, grace, and learning to notice the sacred presence already moving among us.
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Most people miss miracles because we are not really looking for them.
We tend to imagine miracles as dramatic interruptions: lightning bolts, impossible healings, unmistakable signs that break through ordinary life. And sometimes, perhaps, miracles do arrive that way.
But what if most miracles are quieter than that?
What if they are happening all around us every day—in phone calls, paperwork, timing, strength we did not know we had, and grace that arrives right in the middle of what is hard?
This week’s Firebird Spirit reflection invites us to develop eyes and ears for the sacred ordinary.
Miracles in the Hard Places
Elder Barb Sixbey speaks from a place of profound personal loss. After the sudden illness and death of her husband, Mike, she does not offer easy answers or sentimental comfort. She offers witness.
Mike was diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer on January 5. There was no cure. No treatment that would save him. He died thirty days later.
Barb says plainly that she did not ask God for the major miracle of physical healing. Instead, she asked for strength, wisdom, and God’s presence beside her.
And God was there.
Not by removing the grief. Not by changing the outcome. But by meeting her within the storm.
The Miracle of Timing
One of the miracles Barb describes involved something very practical: a will.
Like many couples, Barb and Mike had talked for years about creating a will but had never gotten around to it. After Mike’s diagnosis, it became urgent. The paperwork was prepared quickly, but Mike’s health was deteriorating so rapidly that there were many days when he would not have been alert or strong enough to sign it.
On the day the witnesses came, he was clear, present, and able to express his wishes.
The next day, he was in hospice and would not have been able to do it.
One day.
One opening.
One moment of grace.
Barb calls that a miracle.
Grace Beside Grief
The miracle did not erase the loss. It did not make death less real. It did not spare Barb the pain of saying goodbye.
But it revealed something sacred moving alongside the grief.
That distinction matters.
Sometimes grace does not come instead of the hard thing. Sometimes grace comes right beside it.
A hand on your shoulder at exactly the right moment.
A phone call you did not expect.
The document you needed appearing in the file you reached for.
The strength to do the next necessary thing.
The sun coming up again when you were not sure you wanted it to.
These may not look like miracles from a distance. But when you are the one living through the valley, they can feel like holy ground.
The Miracle of Being Here
Barb reminds us that miracles are not only found in crisis. They are also found in the fact that we are here at all.
The formation of human life is astonishing. So much can go wrong, and yet life happens again and again. Each person watching, reading, breathing, grieving, loving, and hoping is already a miracle.
We often take that for granted because it is ordinary.
But ordinary does not mean unsacred.
Spring is ordinary too, and still it can feel miraculous after a long winter. Buds appear. Grass returns. Flowers push through cold ground. Birds gather nesting materials. Life resumes its work.
Our ancestors must have wondered each winter whether warmth would really return. And when it did, surely they saw miracle in it.
Learning to Notice
The invitation this week is simple:
Notice.
Notice the quiet movements of grace. Notice the small strength that shows up when you thought you had none left. Notice the kindness that arrives through someone else. Notice the sacred presence in ordinary rooms, ordinary conversations, ordinary mornings.
Maybe miracles are not always about breaking the laws of nature.
Maybe sometimes they are about breaking through our numbness, our distraction, and our despair.
The holy may not be far away. It may not be hidden in a special place. It may already be here.
We Are Held
The Gathering Call reminded us that there is nowhere we can go where the Holy One is not already there. In the heights, in the depths, in uncertainty, in grief, in moments of beauty and moments of confusion—we are held.
We live and move and have our being within the Sacred.
That does not mean everything is easy. It does not mean every outcome is what we hoped for. It does not mean grief disappears.
It means we are not alone.
It means the Creating One is already at work in what we cannot yet see.
It means grace has not run out.
A Hundred Million Miracles
Rodgers and Hammerstein once wrote of a hundred million miracles happening every day. Firebird Spirit hears that as a spiritual invitation.
Open our eyes.
Open our ears.
Open our hearts.
Not so we can deny the hard things, but so we can recognize grace right alongside them.
The miracle may be the friend who calls.
The miracle may be the form that gets signed in time.
The miracle may be the courage to keep going.
The miracle may be your own life, still unfolding.
So this week, slow down just a little.
Look around.
Pay attention.
What if the miracle is not somewhere else?
What if it is already here?