(Dreamstime/Bhofack2)
by Melinda Le Blanc
I was on a scheduled break from months of chemotherapy treatment, which had left me tired and disillusioned: The side effects of chemo were as bad as the disease they were supposed to cure. While pausing the treatments had reversed some of the unwanted side effects, it had not changed my bad attitude. I would need more divine help for that.
God's plan for doing so was apparently put into place when I ventured out for a rare trip to the grocery store one day. I just needed a few basic things, but once inside I felt an urge to shop the cookie aisle. Despite the fact that cookies were not originally on my list, I soon found myself surrounded by multi-tiered shelves of cookies of every possible variety.
And then it happened — a taste for chocolate sugar wafer cookies hit me hard. I searched the shelves in answer to the call and found sugar wafer vanilla, strawberry and peanut butter — but no chocolate. I was disappointed, but so it goes. Vanilla sugar wafers were better than no sugar wafers at all, so I put the box in my cart.
I was still bummed as I unpacked the groceries at home. I reached into the last bag and what did I pull out but a box of chocolate sugar wafers! Where did those come from?
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I had focused on every single box on the aisle with the intensity of Cookie Monster but hadn't seen a one. I was certain I had put a box of vanilla ones in the cart. But here I was, awestruck, holding a box of chocolate sugar wafer cookies.
After eating way too many that afternoon, I determined this was surely some kind of small, ordinary miracle. A cookie miracle sounds silly, but to me it was a miracle nonetheless.
The cookies were given to me as a reminder that God is with me and lovingly provides for me. The miracle of the cookie aisle, the simple joy of it, tells me that God is faithful and knows what I need before I even ask.
Once I resumed the challenge of my chemo treatments, I often needed — and continue to need — a reminder that God has not abandoned me. I look back on the cookie miracle and know that indeed, I am seen and loved.
