Many people believe that miracles are confined to the Bible, but some claim a higher power really can intervene in unimaginable ways.
And now they’re revealing their ‘proof.’
Dr Deanna Shrodes said her own modern-day miracle led her to find others who had placed their faith in God and experienced unexplainable events thanks to the power of prayer.
Shrodes, an author and doctor in ministry from South Eastern University, was on a decade-long search for the father she never knew. She finally found him, still alive in a nursing home, after Shrodes said God whispered the name of the man she was looking for.
The 58-year-old’s own experience with the miracle that helped her locate her long-lost father spurred the minister to seek out more ‘verified’ miracle stories.
In her new book, ‘Uncommon Answers,’ Shrodes revealed how a 19-year-old football player was diagnosed with a terminal case of lymphoma – only for doctors to find he was cancer-free after his grandmother prayed at his bedside.
In another miraculous event, a woman battling infertility for 14 years said God gave her specific instructions about what to do with her life and career – which eventually led to her giving birth four times.
Shrodes’ poses with her father, whom she never knew until the author claims God sent her his name which finally broke open her decade-long search
Shrodes said all of these extraordinary events were sparked by the same thing – prayers to God, and that miracles don’t just happen to special people.
‘The Bible said that God is no respecter of persons, and so I don’t believe that these things are just for outliers. I don’t believe that. I believe that miracles don’t have to be uncommon. We can see them happen more and more,’ she said.
Shrodes believes God whispered her biological father’s name to her after praying for the Almighty’s help.
Her biological mother had passed away without ever telling her who her father was.
So, after decades with no answers, she developed a Facebook group to search for him – knowing only that he was Greek and had black wavy hair. Shrodes did a 23andMe DNA test but no matches were found.
Then, for three nights, Shrodes recalled that she prayed to God and said: ‘Lord, You know I believe. This is not just what my church believed when I was growing up — this is my faith.’
‘I believe what I preach. And so, God, as I lie here on this floor crying out to You, I ask You for one thing: Give me a name! Give me my father’s name,’ she continued.
The minister said that on the third night the Holy Spirit ‘dropped a thought into her mind’ and it was the name Gus.
It turned out to be the correct name. A DNA match discovered that he was 91 and still alive in Virginia – where Deanna Shrodes was born.
It turns out that before Shrodes said she received this message from God, her search kept missing Gus because it was restricted to people born within a certain date range – 10 years older or 10 years younger than her mother.
‘When we found him, we discovered my mom was 20 when she had me, and Gus was 36,’ she explained.
The couple then reunited, first via Facetime and then in person.
‘I was his only [child] in the world, and he was in a nursing home in Richmond, Virginia, right back where it all started, where I was conceived… that’s my true hometown,’ Shrodes added.
Shrodes started looking for other individuals that experienced modern-day miracles and published their stories in a new book
Shrodes is an author and minister who found her biological father after God gave her his name during prayer
Another miracle Shrodes discovered involved a young man named Mark Purkey, who had been given ‘very little’ time to live after being diagnosed with lymphoma – a type of blood cancer.
His grandmother prayed in the hospital room for the football player to be healed.
That’s when Purkey said that the presence of God entered the room and a miracle took place, with Mark eventually being released with a clean bill of health.
‘He received an incredible miracle after hearing that there was no hope for him to live, he has been a minister ever since, travelling the country for many years,’ Shrodes explained.
Another miracle recounted in the book revolved around the experience of Shannon Howe, who prayed and listened to God as she battled infertility for 14 years.
She said that never giving up on prayer, fasting, and obedience to what God told her all helped to ‘get an answer’ from her prayers.
‘He told her very specifically that she was to get involved in everything she could to do with ministering to children, and she ministered in her church in every way she possibly could,’ Shrodes revealed.
‘She literally became the head of [the] nursery department. She began to work with young girls in their girls ministry. She did this for many years,’ the author added.
After 14 years, Howe now has four children and her oldest is the children’s pastor of the same church she attended.
‘Many times we’re not willing to wait to receive the miracle that we need to receive, and we don’t. We don’t listen to what God said,’ Shrodes said.
Shrodes said her book offers tips on how to achieve miracles in your own life, focusing on the power of prayer
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Scientists who are religious believers, such as astrophysicist Professor Christine Done at the University of Durham, have argued that if one believes in a supernatural God, it’s also rational to believe that he can suspend the ‘rules’ of existence to perform miracles.
Scientists have linked some Biblical miracles to real events – for example, how the Bible said ‘the sun stood still and the Moon stopped’ in the book of Joshua.
Cambridge University researchers linked this to a real annular eclipse (also known as a ‘ring of fire’ eclipse) which took place on October 30, 1207 BC.
There are more than 80 miracles in the Old Testament, such as Daniel in the lion’s den, the 10 plagues of Egypt, and the parting of the Red Sea.
There are a similar number in the New Testament, such as turning water into wine and Jesus feeding 5,000 people.
Shrodes believes that to encourage miracles to happen, people should start ‘listening to what God is saying’ – and then having patience.
She said that sometimes people have to change, for example, by helping others or by making sacrifices in their own lives.
‘God answers the prayers of the righteous’, the author said, adding that she believes that praying with friends and family is even more powerful.
Shrodes explained that the sign that a miracle has taken place is that it’s something that would have ‘never taken place’ and something that only happens after a person has exhausted every avenue.
She hopes to help people who are ‘desperate for an answer’ to find their way to any kind of prayer – and to believe in the extraordinary.