God Hides Miracles in Small Places

Some of life's greatest lessons don't arrive during extraordinary moments. They don't come while standing on a mountaintop or listening to a remarkable sermon. More often than not, they quietly reveal themselves in the ordinary places we almost overlook. I've come to believe that God has a wonderful habit of hiding profound truths inside everyday moments, waiting for us to slow down long enough to notice them. Sometimes those moments happen while watching a sunset, listening to birds on a quiet morning, or simply sitting on the deck with a warm cup of tea. This week, one of those moments came from the last place I ever expected, in a squirrel feeder.

As I was cleaning out the feeder boxes, I noticed something small pushing up through the seed. At first, I thought it was simply another weed that had somehow found its way inside. But as I looked closer, I realized there weren't just one but two tiny seedlings. Somehow, two forgotten seeds had found enough soil, enough moisture, and enough light to begin growing in the middle of a wooden box that had never been intended to become a garden. Out of all the seeds the squirrels had carried away or scattered across the yard, these two had quietly chosen life. I couldn't stop thinking about them because they weren't supposed to be there. No one had carefully planted them. No one had watered them or tended to them. They hadn't grown in rich garden soil surrounded by flowers. They had simply responded to the conditions they were given. Hidden beneath birdseed and tucked inside a feeder built for an entirely different purpose, life had somehow found a way to emerge.

The more I thought about those little seedlings, the more they reminded me of the way God works. We tend to believe that beautiful things only grow in perfect conditions. We imagine we need everything to be in place before something meaningful can happen. We wait for life to become less complicated, for the timing to be better, for circumstances to be easier, or for all of our questions to finally have answers. Yet throughout Scripture, God seems to delight in bringing life from places where no one expected it. He has never been limited by imperfect conditions. Again and again, He chose barren wombs, frightened shepherds, overlooked fishermen, and ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things. He has always seen possibilities where everyone else saw limitations.

I suppose that's why those tiny seedlings touched my heart so deeply. They reminded me that life is incredibly persistent. Given even the smallest opportunity, it reaches toward the light. It doesn't waste its energy wishing it had been planted somewhere else. It simply grows where it has been placed. There is something profoundly hopeful about that because so many of us spend our lives wishing our circumstances were different before we allow ourselves to bloom. We quietly tell ourselves that once life settles down, once the finances improve, once our health returns, once retirement comes, or once this difficult season finally passes, then we'll begin living the life we've dreamed about. Yet those two little seedlings didn't wait for perfect conditions. They simply grew with what they had.

I've asked myself more than once over the past couple of years how anything good could possibly grow from such a difficult season. When Tim became ill and was eventually diagnosed with PNES, our lives changed in ways we never could have imagined. At first, all I could see was what had been lost. The plans we had made suddenly looked different. Our days became filled with doctor's appointments, therapy sessions, disability paperwork, uncertainty, and countless questions that seemed to have no easy answers. It would have been easy to believe that everything meaningful had been placed on hold while we simply tried to survive. Looking back now, I realize that wasn't what God was doing at all.

Somewhere beneath the surface, while we were focused on simply making it through another day, seeds were quietly beginning to grow. Tim discovered a gift for storytelling that had been waiting inside him for years. One story became another, and before long his imagination was creating worlds filled with suspense, mystery, and hope. Music followed, giving voice to emotions that words alone sometimes couldn't express. Around that same time, I found myself writing in an entirely different way than I ever had before. For years my writing had centered around training guides, documentation, and helping people learn. Suddenly I found myself writing from my heart instead of simply from my head. Those reflections became a way of processing everything God was teaching me through our journey. Together, those little seeds eventually became Seizing Hope, a place where families living with PNES could find encouragement, resources, and the comforting reminder that they were not alone. None of that existed before this difficult chapter of our lives, and yet all of it quietly began growing while we thought nothing was happening.

Perhaps that's what those tiny seedlings were trying to teach me. God is always creating, even when we can't yet see what He's growing. Most miracles don't begin with fireworks or fanfare. They begin quietly, beneath the surface, long before anyone notices. A single act of kindness changes someone's day. A conversation plants hope in a weary heart. A dream begins as nothing more than a thought that refuses to go away. A ministry starts with one family trying to make sense of their own pain. The greatest transformations often begin so small that they could easily be overlooked if we aren't paying attention.

Jesus understood this better than anyone, which is probably why He spoke so often about seeds. A seed looks ordinary. It doesn't appear impressive or powerful. If anything, it looks lifeless. Yet tucked inside something so incredibly small is the potential for an entire tree, a field of wildflowers, or a harvest capable of feeding thousands. God has always loved small beginnings because He already sees what they will become long before we ever do. While we're focused on how insignificant the seed appears, He's already imagining the shade of the tree it will someday provide.

The older I get, the more I find myself paying attention to the little things. I no longer believe that miracles are reserved only for the extraordinary moments of life. Sometimes they're found in a breathtaking sunset after a difficult day. Sometimes they're hidden inside a conversation with a friend who calls at exactly the right time. Sometimes they're discovered while sitting quietly with a cup of tea, listening to birds greet another morning. And sometimes they're growing unnoticed inside an old squirrel feeder in the backyard. Those small moments have become some of my greatest teachers because they continually remind me that God is always at work, even when His work seems almost invisible.

Those two tiny seedlings are still small. I don't know whether they'll survive or whether I'll eventually transplant them somewhere they can continue to grow. But in many ways, they've already accomplished something remarkable. They've reminded me that life always reaches toward the light. They've reminded me that hope often begins long before we recognize it. Most of all, they've reminded me never to underestimate what God can do with the smallest beginnings. The places we dismiss as ordinary, broken, or insignificant may very well be the places where He is quietly creating something beautiful. After all, our God has always been in the business of bringing life from places where no one thought it was possible. And if He can grow two tiny seedlings inside a squirrel feeder, imagine what He can do with a heart that continues to trust Him, even when all it can see are the smallest signs of new life.

The tiny seedlings