A Faith Story by Jeanne Dams

The Story of a Miracle

This is the story of the miracle that happened to me years ago, when I was just beginning my career as a writer. I had sold my first book to a publisher and knew that I would be receiving a royalty check pretty soon. Meanwhile, however, my husband and I were in deep trouble financially. He was unable to work, because of a stroke. The bills were piling up. I tried everything I could to make some money, trying to find a job as a waitress—anything. I even applied to McDonald’s, but they turned me down. The bills amounted to about two thousand dollars, and I could see no way to pay them. I finally turned the problem over to God, saying that I couldn’t do anything about this, so it was up to Him.

I think it was the day after that rather irreverent prayer that I received a letter in the mail. The address was typed on a manual typewriter by a poor typist, with ‘flying capitals’ all over the place. The return address, rubber stamped, was ‘The Encouragement Fund’ with a post office box address in New Jersey. My first thought was that this was an appeal for money, and I almost threw out the letter, thinking bitterly that you can’t get blood from a turnip. My curiosity, though, prompted me to open it.

The letter was just as amateurishly produced as the envelope. It was a computer print-out in what my husband used to call ‘ransom-note typography’, that is, several different fonts from a dot-matrix printer. It said that The Encouragement Fund was an organization formed to encourage artists whose careers were just beginning, and that I could use the enclosure any way I wanted so long as it aided my work.

The enclosure was a check for two thousand dollars.

I tried to find out who sent it. The signature on the check was illegible. I knew no one in New Jersey. My agent denied knowing anything about it.

I finally had to regard it as manna from Heaven. To this day, thirty years later, I still have not learned who sent it, and still regard it as the direct answer to prayer. Whenever I doubt that prayer matters, I think of my little miracle and am able to hope again.