Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hope & Miracles — 101 Inspirational Stories of Faith, Answered Prayers & Divine Intervention (Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC; edited by Amy Newmark and Natasha Stoynoff; February 10, 2015; ISBN 978-1-61159-944-2, $14.95 softcover, 411 pages)

The latest installation in the long running Chicken Soup for the Soul collection of books offers stories about hope and miracles, or coincidences, depending on one’s view. Local readers will note two familiar names in the list of contributors: Scarlett Lewis, who lost one of her sons on 12/14, and New Hope Community Church Senior Pastor Jim Solomon.

Psychic medium John Edwards, in the book’s foreword, points out that while “miracle” usually creates a vision of something epic — Moses raising his staff in a Cecil B. DeMille movie comes to mind, as does the story of a mother who finds the strength to lift a car off her child — it doesn’t have to be all that mind-blowing to be considered miraculous.

“Some miracles of life are so common that people take them for granted,” he writes in the opening pages of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hope & Miracles — 101 Inspirational Stories of Faith, Answered Prayers & Divine Intervention. The return of spring buds and leaves on trees are miraculous, Mr Edwards points out, as is the birth of every child.

“To me,” he writes, “these small miracles are just as awe-inspiring as the larger-than-life ones of the old days and the modern ones we hear of today, and I’m just grateful for each and every one of them.”

For those who believe in the power of prayer, the book is filled with stories of people who found their prayers answered and their lives changed. Many stories prove that sometimes a change of plans, an accident, or an inconvenience can in fact be a blessing in disguise. In the introduction to the book, which they have titled “Divine Timing,” co-editors Natasha Stoynoff and Amy Newman share the story of Ms Stoynoff’s paternal grandfather, and his arrival at the docks for the April 10, 1912 departure from Southampton, England of Titanic. Even while racing toward the boat and thinking of his father’s words — that the fate of the entire Shaumanduroff family was on his shoulders — it did not occur to the 18-year old that missing the boat could turn into a blessing.

We all know how the story of Titanic ends, of course.

In addition to serving as co-editor of the latest Chicken Soup release, Ms Stoynoff worked with Ms Lewis on her story, “Jesse in the Sky.” The first story in the collection, Ms Lewis begins by reminding readers about her little boy, who used the last minutes of his young life to save the lives of classmates and friends by telling them to run when the gun of the shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School momentarily jammed.

She recalls signs that she, her surviving son and other family members occasionally see that make them either think of the late six-year-old or give them comfort in the idea that he is watching out for them on what she calls the “Other Side.”

The focus of her short story (with 101 stories to share, all offerings in Chicken Soup books are kept brief), is a moment that was shared between Scarlett and JT Lewis, after the mother and son arrived in Florida near the end of 2012. It was the first time the two had been able to get away from Sandy Hook after the shootings.

“The grief in our town was so all-consuming that we were drowning in it,” she wrote. Ms Lewis was hoping, she noted, that a trip to sunny, warm Orlando might help the healing process.

Within hours of landing, through a serendipitous series of events, the two were given a sign, “a miraculous affirmation,” she called it, that caused mother and son to stare at the sky in wonder and relief. A message written in smoke by an airplane left the two sitting in awe and silence. A small detail left no doubt that the skywriting was meant for them, even though it was done at 10,000 feet in the air and they were hours off schedule.

In addition to being a fan of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Ms Lewis told The Newtown Bee last week that it has become her mission in life to spread her son’s message of nurturing-healing-love. Ms Lewis found those three words written by Jesse on a chalkboard in their kitchen shortly before he was murdered, and she used them as the basis of her October 2013 book, Nurturing Healing Love: A Mother's Journey of Hope & Forgiveness. (Ms Stoynoff also worked with Ms Lewis on that book too.)

“I love the premise of the Chicken Soup for the Soul stories,” Ms Lewis said February 26. “I’ve always loved those books, and I’ve always loved positive stories that are meaningful and inspiring for people.

“It has become my mission to spread Jesse’s message of nurturing healing love, and also to share these beautiful signs and messages that I’ve gotten from him so that people can choose to live in faith, not fear,” she added. “I think that’s one of the issues we have in this society. There’s so much fear.”

For the Reverend Jim Solomon, it was about 11 years ago that the miracle he shares in this collection occurred. In his story, called “Walking The Talk,” the former businessman shares an incident that began in October 2002.

Raised in the Roman Catholic faith, Solomon even considered becoming a Catholic priest at one point. By his high school and college years, however, a series of events had led him to become agnostic. Through patient guidance from his older sister Elizabeth, Rev Solomon shares, he found a way to have “not so much a religion about God but a relationship with God.” That relationship did not mean he automatically believed in miracles, however.

Near the close of the 20th Century, after having worked for six years as an accountant in Boston and meeting the woman who later became his wife, Mr Solomon moved to the West Coast and began studies at Bethel Theology Seminary in San Diego. Two jobs later, the Solomons had returned to New England, now with two young daughters in tow, and Rev Solomon accepted the position of associate pastor at Walnut Hill Community Church in Bethel.

In October 2002 Rev Solomon found himself at Danbury Hospital praying for a man, a member of Walnut Hill CC, who had been very seriously injured while moving furniture. In sharing his story, Rev Solomon describes not only what he said but also how he felt while laying his hands on a man who had not accepted Christ into his life.

“My foremost concern in that moment was learning that William’s wife and daughters had accepted Christ but he had not,” the Rev Solomon wrote. “Yet, like me, they wanted him with them — not only temporarily on early, but eternally in heaven.”

By the end of his story Rev Solomon shares with readers why he continues to think of William Cox as a walking miracle. When Mr Cox visited Rev Solomon a few months after the accident that nearly paralyzed him, he walked, unaided, into the pastor’s office.

Rev Solomon reconnected with William and Joanne Cox recently, he said last week. He reached out to them after receiving an invitation from Editor Amy Newmark, inviting him to share another story for the Chicken Soup series.

“Walking the Talk” is the third story shared in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series by the Rev Solomon. His first was “Songs of Remembrance,” which recalled part of the experience of caring for his mother, an Alzheimer’s patient, for last spring’s Chicken Soup for The Soul: Living With Alzheimer’s and Other Dementias. Then in October, his short story “Angelica” was included in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Touched By An Angel.

“They were so encouraged,” Rev Solomon said February 26. “They said they had wanted to share their story for years, and now they’ll be able to share it through such a larger venue.”

 He visited with the Coxes in January. It was the first time in a number of years all three were able to visit in person.

“He’s up and around, looking good, feeling good,” said Rev Solomon, “He’s happy and healthy. God not only healed his body, but healed his soul.”

To those who challenge Mr Cox’s recovery as less than miraculous, Rev Solomon agrees that “it could have been ‘just’ though medicine.

“But isn’t medicine a miracle too?” he said.