Ah, there it was! The book I was hoping to find was tucked  away on the closet shelf where I kept some of the old children’s books:  “The Little Engine That Could” written by Wally Piper.  How often I’d read it to the children. I still recall  the sing song lines: “Chug, chug, chug.” “I think I can. I think I can.” “I knew I could; I knew I could!”

            This was a different version from the original Little Golden books I remembered. It was larger  and exquisitely illustrated on every page. My husband remarked on some of the illustrations being very dated which admittedly they are, but  I thought they were charming.   I was happy to find the  book for a  resident at the care center. She is pretty new, hasn’t been there very long, and I don’t know much about her circumstances. But we connected and in conversation she told me she wished she could  have the story of the Little Engine. Obviously it means something important  to her.

            She was waiting in the activity room for Bible Study  and smiled when I came in.  “Close your eyes,” I said, “and don’t peek.” I placed the book next to her Bible. When she opened her eyes and saw the book, she couldn’t talk and kept looking at me and then at the book. Her eyes filled with tears;  I was pretty choked up myself. For the next half hour she pored over every page, admiring the pictures, reading the story and commenting. It’s been a while since I saw someone that happy over something so small. When she finished, I suggested she put her name in it. “But it’s yours,”  she questioned me.  No, Jenny, it’s yours and I inscribed it for her on the frontispiece.

            We went ahead with studying the next chapter of Luke which had to do with loving your enemy and forgiveness. I know the Lord was speaking deeply into her heart; He was certainly doing a work in mine. Later I wondered. Which was the better Bible Study,  Luke 5 or the lesson of a lost book found at the right time for the right person. Which words  illustrated  the love of Jesus more  vividly? Which was the greater gift?

             I think of Jesus’ three years of ministry. He performed miracles of healing, deliverance and restoration to publicly glorify His Father. He preached and taught and fulfilled every Messianic prophecy even to the cross and resurrection. He is God and these are the giant  miracles in the Gospels.  But I wonder. Jesus  was also a man. He walked and talked and touched and laughed and probably cried with real people in real time every single day?  How many rejects heard His voice on the fringes of the crowd? How many lepers just caught a glimpse of his face or merely saw His feet in the dust? How many ordinary people in the multitudes felt Jesus’ presence near them and simply “knew”  Him?  How many lost sheep were found, empowered, loved, forgiven and healed  because Jesus passed by?  How many awoke from sleep and death into  Christ’s Light shining all around them. We do not know about all the unrecorded miracles  wrought by  the Lord but I suspect that on the other side of the veil, we’ll be flabbergasted at the number.

However, John gives an insight at the end of his Gospel like this:

            Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.John 21:25

            It is not  hard to touch broken  people in  kindness, especially, more importantly, in the little  every day opportunities that come our way. Miracles are waiting to happen.