Chanukah - Miracles, Big and Small

On Chanukah, in V’al Hanisim, we say “bayamim ha’heim, bazman hazeh” that Hashem did nissim in the past and continues to do nissim for us now. Look around. It is very easy to see the nissim that Hashem does for us every day. Just open your eyes and you will see it!
Are you able to breathe? That is such a HUGE miracle! If you learn biology, you will start to understand just a little bit about how amazing it is that your body works the way it does. Your heart pumps the blood, it goes through your whole body and that is how you are able to function! You eat some food and your body knows exactly how to digest it properly! Is that not the coolest thing ever??

When you visit a new doctor for the first time, you are asked to complete pages of questions relating to prior and current illnesses, operations, conditions, and medications. B"H, I am able to keep checking the “No” box to most of these questions. (Okay, I am allergic to penicillin so I have to fill that in.) However, the fact that the questions are being asked is reason to believe that these conditions and concerns are, r"l, more prevalent than we think. Every so often, try to imagine yourself filling out those forms, checking “No” after “No” in each and every box, and exclaiming, “Thank You, Hashem, Thank You, Hashem for the nissim veniflaos that you bestow upon me, every day of the year!”

But it’s not only that. It’s not only the amazing fact that your body works so well that you can thank Hashem for during this special yom tov of Chanukah. We say in Modim, “V’al nisecha shebichol yom imanu” – we thank Hashem for the daily miracles He performs for us. There are so many times that Hashem performs miracles for us – every single day!

For example – you were walking down the street and that car almost hit you but you were walking fast enough for it to miss…
Or you were driving down the highway and you arrived at your destination without anything dangerous happening…yes, this one just happened to me! I was driving on the highway because we went away for shabbos Chanukah and trust me, you would not have wanted to be in the car with me! it was quite a scary trip, let me tell you! Why? Because this was my first time driving all the way on my own. I recently learned how to drive highways (okay, I drove once on the highway with the driving instructor and once for about 15 minutes when we were going away for shabbos – and my husband took over cuz it was just too scary, I was not ready)! I’m still getting over the fear of highways and I’m telling you one thing for sure, there were certain parts of that trip where I felt like I AM NOT THE ONE DRIVING THIS CAR!! I was soo scared and flipping out and I was like, Hashem, you are driving this car! Not me!! I was going sooo fast, really fast and it was on a curvy part of the road – at an exit and I was really scared that I’d hit the trees…but b”h I was safe!! Hashem really was watching over me while I was in the car! And b”h we made it to our destination safely! And I was able to say, “I did it!” but yes, this was truly a miracle – my own Chanukah miracle!!

And these miracles happen all the time! Hashem is guiding you and watching over you all the time!

Sometimes, Hashem saves you from something and you don’t even know about it – it’s called PREVENTION – the times Hashem prevented something terrible from happening to you! This is another thing to thank Hashem for – the nissim that happened to you that you don’t even know about! Someone could have gotten upset with you and yelled at you but they didn’t…you could have tripped and fallen and scraped your knee but you caught yourself from falling…

There are small miracles and big miracles happening to you daily, you just have to look out for them and you will see Hashem with you! Chanukah is a time to thank Hashem for the small and the big miracles that have happened to you – anyone want to share their stories??