A former co-worker once asked me if I believed in miracles. It was during the Easter season and we were in a department store filled with colourful baskets and lovely spring fashions. I told her that I did believe in miracles; her question took me back to a time when God’s power transformed my family from chaos to peace.

My childhood was in constant turmoil. All holidays and most weekends were filled with fear and anxiety because my father was a raging alcoholic. When dad was intoxicated he called Mom names. I would ask my mother what those words meant and she would sadly shake her head, telling me that I should never repeat those words to anyone.

On most weekends dad would carouse with his drinking buddies, then stagger through the door barely making it to his favourite chair beside the stove where he would drink whiskey straight out of the bottle and hurl insults at my mother while she hid in the next room.

My older sisters stood guard to be sure that he did not burn the house down while nodding off to sleep with a lit cigarette in his hand. Sometimes he stuffed the stove so full of wood that we felt sure our house would catch fire.

Because of this we often slept in our clothes, so that we could get out of the house in a hurry if we had to.

Back then 911 did not exist, so my older sisters would run over to a neighbour’s house and call our aunt and uncle when dad became extra loud. — Beliefnet.com