Can a miracle come in the form of an old cookbook?
Doctors didn’t have much faith that 100-year-old Ruth Levy would get better. Complications from pneumonia made it unlikely she’d ever return home from the hospital.
That all changed when one of her relatives, David Vos, decided to pay her a visit. Before he left, he pulled a first-edition book off his mother’s shelf: Clémentine in the Kitchen, by Samuel Chamberlain. Something to read to Ruth in the hospital.
“I didn’t know the book,” David told The New York Times, “but it was about cooking, it looked old and it seemed to have character, so I threw it in my shoulder bag.”
It soon became more than a cookbook. In addition to 170 recipes, Clémentine in the Kitchen tells the story of an American family and their French cook, Clémentine. Whenever David visited Ruth, he read from the book. Ruth was charmed by it, couldn’t stop talking about it. Pretty soon, other visitors–even Ruth’s health aide–got caught up in the narrative.
Little by little, Ruth started to get better, though a full recovery didn’t seem possible. Until David made her a promise: if she got well enough to return home, he’d throw her a potluck party featuring dishes from Clémentine in the Kitchen. She did. It was a turnaround no one saw coming when she first got sick. A miracle administered through the pages of an old cookbook.
I love this story, and not just because it’s sweet: It reveals a lot about God. First, that he will use anyone and anything to spread his wonder. And second, that he’s wonderfully creative, more so than we can possibly imagine. Sometimes we seek out easy miracles–a simple, predictable answer from God that perfectly solves our problems and addresses our most desperate prayers. God’s miracles, though, are amazingly complex, well-planned and far-reaching. Sure, he could’ve healed Ruth in an instant. No trip to the hospital, no bedside readings. Instead, he laid out a plan that not only healed Ruth, but also impacted everyone around her in a pretty remarkable way.
At the potluck party, Ruth thanked her guests, those who had stood by her when all hope was lost.
“This potluck has a theme,” she said, “and the theme is that everyone who’s here visited me in rehab and read to me. And I got through it because of that.”
Have you ever experienced a miracle that occurred in an unusual or unexpected way? Share your story below!
