Do you believe in miracles?

I've been feeling kind of down about the holidays, lately.  I'm far away from family and I've honestly just not seen much point in celebrating Chanukah this year.  Lighting the candles by yourself or with your goy (non-Jewish) husband who (with good intentions) asks "when are you going to sing the nonsense songs?" and "what is wrong with this holiday that it keeps moving around so much?" just doesn't have the same appeal as fighting over who gets to light each candle with your cousins as your grandmother smiles in the background covered in flour from making burmuelos (little fried doughnuts drenched in honey).  I've been so isolated away from all things Jewish living out here in rural Missouri for the past 8 1/2 years that I've started to lose sight of why any of it matters.

Yesterday, I was feeling particularly down after I was leaving my therapy session.  My therapist actually said "one of our other counselors adopted and then his wife got pregnant, like two months later!  I don't know if they just relaxed or what, but you hear about it all the time!  Maybe you need to relax."  Seething, I had to "school" her on how incredibly hurtful that is to say to someone who is infertile and now I'm questioning whether I need to find a new counselor (perhaps the one who adopted...)

Chanukah was starting last night, and I was questioning whether I was even going to bother lighting the first candle.

I turned on NPR for the ride home, and they were interviewing Matisyahu -- an Hassidic Reggae artist (yes, that's a little odd...).  He was talking about Chanukah and why there aren't a lot of Chanukah songs and, at the end of the interview, sang his new song "Miracle." 

I started crying.  By the end, I was singing along.  I came home and found the video on-line -- the Chanukah story told through, of all things, hockey -- the "Miracle on Ice." 



Love it.  I haven't been able to stop singing it since with a smile and tears running down my face. 

I took out the menorah that my grandmother bought in Israel and lit the first candle.  When she died eleven  years ago, this was the one thing of hers that I begged the rest of the family to let me have.  Singing the blessings with tears in my eyes, I could hear my grandma and see her hands as she lit the shamash (helper candle) in my tiny hand so I could light the first candle of the night.  I said a silent prayer that next year I'd have a little one to watch the beautiful flickering glow as we place our menorah in the window.

Inspiring.  We can overcome.  We can get beyond infertility.  The odds are against us but we can do it.

Bound to stumble and fall, but my strength comes not from man at all.
Bound to stumble and fall, but my strength comes not from man at all!

Do you believe in miracles?   

Happy Chanukah!!! :)