A Hand

Teddy and I saw a miracle today. I wasn't planning to share my own personal miracles, wanting the events to be something we all can read and experience in the scriptures, but if you have a hand, this is your miracle, too. 

As Teddy's sentinel of sleep, I was by his crib helping him to be still and relaxed to invite a nap.  He was close to sleep several times. But instead, he kept extending his hand away from his body and repeatedly opening and closing his fingers, watching with keen interest how his hand worked.  Open. Close. Open. Close. Open. Close.  "Isn't it amazing?" I whispered.  

I recently read this talk from President Howard W. Hunter. Here is an excerpt: 

...startling and wonder-filled as they were, Christ’s many miracles were only reflections of those greater marvels which his Father had performed before him and continues to perform all around us. Indeed, the Savior’s humble performance of such obviously divine acts may be just one very special application of the declarations he made:

“The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19) and “I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me” (John 8:28).

For example, the first miracle by Jesus recorded in the New Testament was the turning of water into wine at the marriage at Cana. (See John 2:1–11.) But poor, indeed, was the making of the wine in the pots of stone, compared with its original making in the beauty of the vine and the abundance of the swelling grapes. No one could explain the onetime miracle at the wedding feast, but then neither could they explain the everyday miracle of the splendor of the vineyard itself.

It is most remarkable to witness one who is deaf made to hear again. But surely that great blessing is no more startling than the wondrous combination of bones and skin and nerves that lets our ears receive the beautiful world of sound. Should we not stand in awe of the blessing of hearing and give glory to God for that miracle, even as we do when hearing is restored after it has been lost?

Is it not the same for the return of one’s sight or the utterance of our speech, or even that greatest miracle of all—the restoration of life? The original creations of the Father constitute a truly wonder-filled world. Are not the greatest miracles the fact that we have life and limb and sight and speech in the first place? Yes, there will always be plenty of miracles if we have "eyes to see and ears to hear."

Teddy seemed to recognize that truth today, and he helped me do so, too. "There are nothing but gifts on this poor, poor earth."  Czeslaw Milosz