The Good Friday Miracle

It was Good Friday. That afternoon, as I sat in one of the pews at St.
Ambrose Church - one that I had visited for answers  many times before - I
buried my head between my hands, wondering why this unexplainable feeling
kept nagging away inside, tugging at me gently but relentlessly.
The night before, nearing close to 8 weeks of separation from my wife, I
had an in-depth conversation with her, and told her of a decision I felt
calm and sure about inside, but one that spelt the final end of our
marriage.
I told her that, after long and careful thought and soul searching, I had
no desire to try to reconcile our relationship. It was over. I could not
predict the future, but at that moment - and for the many days and hours of
struggling with my inner direction before - I knew deep inside that the
best thing for both of us was to let our relationship go, and move onto
tomorrow.
It was painful. And I sensed that, for her, the finality of it all would
come crushing down in heart-wrenching pain. The destructive decisions that
we had both made had finally taken their ultimate toll. It was too late to
turn back the clock.
As I sat in the pew, I explored again my feelings of the night before.
They remained the same - and felt just as solid. Yet the nagging feeling
continued, puzzling me totally. I prayed silently, asking God that, if he
was trying to tell me something, could he please tell me what the hell he
was trying to get through to me.
I remember looking up at the altar close to 100 feet away. Two brass
stands with Easter floral arrangements stood on each side. Sunlight shone
through the stained glass above.
Then, something happened that made me think I was not only hearing my
inner voices, but hallucinating as well. The brass stand to the right of
the altar appeared to move, yet at the same time, stay in exactly the same
place. I remember thinking "was this just a mirage that my eyes created
because I had been holding my face toward the floor for so long, or just
what did happen?" And I felt thoroughly stupid - the stand was exactly in
the same place it was when I first looked at it, and yet I knew something
had happened. But I was even more scared that if I went up closer to make
sure it hadn't really moved, that I would  - by doing so - confirm I was
going crazy.
Eventually, I couldn't stand not knowing for sure any longer. I walked up
to the altar. The closer I got, the more convinced I was that the stand
hadn't moved either to the left or right.
I was right. It hadn't moved either of those directions. When I got
within a few feet of it, I noticed a small white piece of cardboard wedged
between the pole, and the hole it occupied in its base. Although I don't
know how long that stand had been set up in the church, somewhere in the
few minutes that I had looked at it, the cardboard had no longer been able
to keep the pole from slipping in it's broken base, and the pole had tilted
backwards about a foot.
"What are you trying to tell me?", I implored silently, looking up at the
stained glass.
And then the answer came. No matter how much things look as if they are
staying the same, they are changing. It was my viewpoint that prevented me
from seeing the real movement.
At that moment, I knew I was going back. I found a commitment to myself,
one that a solitary man had set for the world by his example almost 2,000
years earlier.
On Easter Sunday, I moved back home. And our journey together has continued
ever since.