Would you like to learn about the Five Stages of the Miracle Experience? If so, read on.

Just as with the Five Stages of Grief, encountering a genuine, unexpected miracle compels one to navigate through these five stages. Similarly, akin to the stages of grief, it is possible to become trapped in any phase and prematurely terminate the process without full resolution.

Surprise

The initial shock and amazement at witnessing the impossible.

Denial

This is where we first deny and attempt to shift responsibility for what has just occurred in our presence.

Uncertainty

This stage is predominantly occupied with the question of “Why,” and doubting our memory of the events surrounding the miracle. We explore plausible, alternate scenarios to explain the miraculous.

Reasoning

In our struggle to comprehend the nature or meaning of the event, we attempt to stabilize our psyche through understanding and comprehension. We seek or construct answers as we develop a framework about its meaning and significance.

Acceptance

We accept the miraculous event as literal and natural for our relationship with God; we find peace and awe in the experience. Most importantly, our faith grows as a result. In other words, our “God Box” gets bigger.

You can ask me how I know, but I’m not telling. When you do experience yours, those steps above are generally how it will play out for you. And like grief, we don’t progress through these stages one after the other but jump between them during the process.

The Unexpected

This quality is important: the unexpected nature of the event pushes us into this processing framework.

Many of us have experienced what we may have called a miracle. But because of faith or disinterest, we immediately had a framework in which the experience was quickly processed, categorized, and perhaps even discarded.

When a person gives their life to Jesus, that person will be changed, never wanting to go back to their old sinful ways.

I wish it were that easy and simple. It never was for me. I became aware of some things—literally overnight—and some behaviors changed immediately. But through no fault of my own, others hung around for a lifetime.

Being a good Baptist, I learned how to thrive on the condemnation routinely spewed like raw sewage from the pulpit. I doubted my salvation; I prayed the sinner’s prayer weekly, if not daily, and confessed the same sins over and over, but nothing changed. So, I embraced the sewage and self-condemnation, figuring this was what I needed to keep me straight.

At some point in my journey, I had begun to learn Father’s voice—thanks be to God because the Baptists I hung out with couldn’t teach that if their lives depended upon it—when during one of my groveling confession sessions, Father spoke so clearly that had it been any louder, I would have heard Him with my ears, bellowing in the room: “Never confess those sins to me again. Don’t bring it to me if you don’t remember when it happened or remember doing it.”

For you see, I knew—as aptly taught—that I was just a worm, a sinner saved by grace, so it didn’t really matter what sin I confessed because, at some point, I’d certainly done it in some fashion. Hence, repeat, ad nauseam.

After that encounter, I didn’t pray again for two weeks because I had nothing else to say or talk about.

That was probably the turning point in my learning who I am in Christ.

Look up Neil T. Anderson and get the book.