To be honest, it did not matter very much, because the significance of all miracles is not how they happen but what their effect is, and in this case the impact it had made on the despondent person who had felt hopeless and who now felt a new sense of enthusiasm.
Maybe the candle had been imperceptibly burning drowsily all along, but it had reminded him of the value of hope, the power of optimism, and opened his eyes to a more positive outlook on life. The incident had rekindled his spirits even if there was a thoroughly rational explanation to it all.
It is the same with us: often we are so weighed down with a problem that we cannot fathom out who we are or where we are heading; then something ? a candle, a person’s kind word, music from a passing car ? can clear the haze and help us to find a way forward. Often, it is a matter of inner blindness: being blind to the possibilities around us and then suddenly seeing the light.
That is the real miracle, without any thunderbolts overhead or earthquakes below, but when something inside us moves and our eyes are more open than they were before.
“The most wonderful thing about miracles is that they sometimes happen.”
–G. K. Chesterton
🙂