Win This Lovely Christmas Miracles Gift Basket

(Atlanta, GA) Many ordinary people experience Christmas miracles—those special moments during the season of giving and receiving when Christmas becomes more than just a holiday. In Christmas Miracles (St. Martin’s Press, October 2009), Cecil Murphey and Marley Gibson share the stories of those who have recognized the special moments that transcend daily experience and transform their lives.

In these stories, people overcome desperate situations through a miraculous twist of fate—all during the most wonderful time of the year. A young boy sits down to read a Christmas book and discovers that his learning disability has vanished. A woman stranded in a blizzard is rescued by a mysterious stranger who she suspects is an angel. And a woman living far from home gets an answer to her prayer in the form of an unexpected gift.

Bestselling author Cecil Murphey says, “We all face discouraging times, whether it's the lack of money, being stuck on a road in a snowstorm, feeling stress, or being hungry and homeless. But God's help is available. I want readers to see that miracles do happen—sometimes simple, unexpected blessings or those that involve the supernatural. We start by asking, and in strange and wonderful ways God tiptoes into our dark nights; we experience renewed joy in life and witness God in action through people and unexpected events.”

Leave a comment for a chance to win the Christmas Miracles gift basket.
Wouldn’t you love to take home this amazing basket filled with Christmas goodies galore? This amazing gift basket contains everything you’ll need to make your Christmas holiday a success. Inside you’ll find a stocking stuffed with hard candies, kitchen towels and oven mitts, seasonal potpourri, holiday-colored candles, stuffed animals that talk, snowman candle, nutcrackers, Christmas ornaments, gift bags, gift tags, gift bows, ornament hangers, Christmas cookie cutters, a Merry Christmas doorstopper, a picture frame, Christmas cards, Santa ear muffs, and not just one, but two copies of Cecil Murphey and Marley Gibson’s Christmas Miracles – one to keep and one to give away to someone special.

NOVEMBER 23 IS THE LAST DAY TO COMMENT to be included in the drawing for the gift basket.

A Message from Cecil Murphey, Author of Christmas Miracles

"Getting excited about Christmas?" asked one of four boys who sat behind me on an Atlanta rapid-transit train.
The event took place during the second week of December and one said, "I'm going to get some cool stuff. My dad promised."
A little later, one of them said, "Christmas is the best of time of the year."

As I listened to them, I thought of that last statement that Christmas is the best time of the year. I agreed, but my reasons were different. They focused on receiving gifts. I smiled because that's a nice aspect of the special time of year.

Yet it's so much more. As a serious Christian, my thoughts focused on the origin of the holiday. In a stable two millennia earlier, a peasant woman gave birth to a baby. That infant was God's miracle gift and that child was to bless the entire world.
Look where we are now. Has it come down to nothing but giving and receiving gifts from each other? Surely there is more.

Immediately, my thoughts shifted from gifts to the significance of that special event. It was a miracle. The Bible says Mary supernaturally conceived and that made Jesus' birth a miracle. As I contemplated the word miracle, my mind flitted from one supernatural story in the Bible to another. There were so many and over thousands of years. I easily recalled healings, deliverance from certain death, victory in battle, as well as miraculous food and water supplied. In the first pages of the New Testament we read of the great miracle that God had promised for hundreds of years: the gift of the world's Savior.

The birth of Jesus is a supernatural, unexplainable event. Sometimes miracles involved the convergence of two or three separate events that cynics would call an astonishing coincidence. At other times the phenomenon happened because of the timing of two actions.

But what about today? If Christmas started with the unexplainable, did the time come when supernatural wonders ceased? Do miracles still happen? In pondering those questions, I thought about Christmas in my life and savored the memory of several Yule-season miracles in my own life. I smiled at recalling my first miracle. At a time during my childhood when we were desperately poor, I needed shoes. I asked for black. From a totally unexpected source, I received my black shoes on Christmas day. No one could have convinced me that God hadn’t provided those shoes. Yes, miracles of Christmas still occurred: I had experienced them.

As I left the rail station and walked to my car, I thought, if I've experienced wonders during this special season, surely there are others who can speak of the unexplainable at Christmas.

In that moment, the idea was born: I would invite other writers to share their miracle stories of the holy season and put them in a book. I teamed with Marley Gibson (who contributed two stories) and we edited every story to give it a unified tone. The book would be our way to proclaim divine love to a fractured, hurting world. It would also remind us that God answers prayer, even in some of the most desperate situations.

Cecil Murphey
http://www.themanbehindthewords.com/