Below is the transcription of the Pilot episode of The Miracle Project Podcast.
Lindsay: Hi, I’m Lindsay Murphy, the founder of the Miracle Project and the host of today’s podcast. Here at The Miracle Project, we believe that a miracle is earthly glimpses of Heaven’s mercy. With each miracle story, we learn more about how real God is and how He moves in the lives of his people. Today, you’ll hear from our special guest, my husband, Rob Murphy. Rob and I have been together for almost 10 years now, and we live in Huntsville, Alabama. We have two babies, Ellie and Jack, and much of my walk with the Lord really, truly began when I met Rob. I’ve learned so much from him and his faith. I’ve been really blessed that our initial conversations upon meeting each other were about our faith, and we have had that foundation from day one. We attribute a lot of our joy and happiness to the Lord and his hand in our relationship. So he’s a big part of the creation of this project. So, it only makes sense to have him on the pilot episode to help me explain the project and the heart behind it! Boo, I’m happy you’re here.
Rob: I’m happy to be here.
Lindsay: So before we get started, I’m going to open us up in prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this project. Thank you for putting it on my heart, because I know that none of this comes from me. You saw an opportunity in me with the time that I have, the phase of life that I’m in, and the relationships I have with people that have incredible stories to share. So, thank you for giving me the opportunity. We just ask that people would learn more about you through this project. That their hope would grow, that their peace would increase and that they would learn to rely on the community of Huntsville for learning more about you. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen. So, Rob, let’s go on and start by talking about our process for defining a miracle. I want to start there because I went on and laid out the definition in the opening, and I think it’s important for us to tell the story about how we got there.
Rob: Sure. So, yeah, I think we’re just chatting in the car, and I know that we had both put a lot of thought into it before and kind of bounced different things around. We weren’t really happy with anything. So we were just rolling down the road and, you know, I’m just sitting there trying to think it up on my own some cool definition. Finally, we thought “Hey, you know, we were at the Carter’s house recently and Zach has a Ph.D. in biblical things. And he’s a good, smart guy. He’s a good definition guy. So I texted Zach and he gave us the good stuff: “earthly glimpses of Heaven’s mercy.”
Lindsay: He did. Yeah. And he also quoted a man (I’m not going to try and say his first name, I think he’s German) named Moltmann who had a really neat way of describing miracles. Moltmann said that people assume that miracles are supernatural, but really they’re just natural. Sin so pervasively affects our world and things are so broken that when miracles happen or when things are resolved or when peace is found, that’s actually just the way things are supposed to be. It’s a restoration of the way things are supposed to be. So we really felt enlightened from Zach and from there, it kind of felt like the floodgates were opened and the Lord was like, “you’re ready.” That was kind of my biggest hold-up; How can we make sure that we are appropriately defining what a miracle is? I felt it was really important before we started producing podcasts and telling stories.
Rob: Absolutely. So thank you, Zach, for being smarter than me.
Lindsay: Yes. Thank you, Zach. So, I’m also going to use this time to just describe what the Miracle Project is, and Rob’s going to help me do that. So, in this phase of my life, I’m at home with two babies and had a lot of time on my hands. I started filling that time by going to coffee with friends to just catch up and get to places in my relationships with friends that I hadn’t had time for when I was working and juggling being a mom and working. I started hearing miracle stories from people in my life, and it was kind of crazy to me that if I had not put in that time and just had that free moment with them, that I wouldn’t have heard these stories. And so it really struck me that I get so much other information on social media while scrolling through Instagram all the time taking in tons of content, but the miracle stories were the content that I really was wanting; Stories of how God is working. So I thought, how cool would it be if I combined my love for Huntsville (which Rob knows I have a deep, deep love for Huntsville. That was a huge part of our relationship — we met in Knoxville, Tennessee, in college, and Rob knew that if he was marrying me, he was committing to Huntsville. Thankfully, I think he loves it for himself)
Rob: I do love Huntsville, it’s a great place to have our family and raise our kids.
Lindsay: Yeah. And so we adore the city and the people in it. And it struck me that I want to know more about it. I know the ins and outs of Huntsville. I can get anywhere without directions. I love to pride myself on that when I’m in the car with Rob. I hate on him all the time when he makes a wrong turn and whatnot. So yeah I know that, I know the bones of Huntsville, but I want to know that the soul of Huntsville. So I’ve already recorded a few podcasts and it’s just been a real joy for me to hear stories of people that I wouldn’t have ordinarily had the opportunity to hear otherwise. And I hope I can give that gift to you as well. So, through podcasting, blogging and eventually YouTube, we will be putting on display a compilation of daily miracles. And they can be big or small, but they’ll reveal how God works in the lives of ordinary people in the Huntsville community. So we hope to bring hope through miracles. The types of miracles you’ll hear about in season one are miracles of unexplainable healing, actual encounters with God, unexpected provision and financial burdens being lifted, radical adoption stories, depression being unexplainably lifted, untimely salvation being released from addictions, and then blessings through disability of a child. It kind of blew my mind that when I started this, that there was such a balanced spectrum of types of miracles. Some people I reached out to and knew they had a story and some people found this project and wanted to share. And the Lord… He’s been so gracious to give us a really broad spectrum of stories. I was nervous that in my own bubble the stories would look the same, but they’re not going to and I’m super excited for that. So, Rob, even though the name The Miracle Project is pretty straightforward, I’ve learned that everyone’s definition of a miracle is different. And that’s why it was so important to us to get a definition that we were on fire for and that helped us with that. So, Rob, I think a lot of people are confused because miracles look way different in the Bible than they do today. And I think that it’s important to talk about. So can you go on and talk to us about why miracles look different?
Rob: Sure. And, you know, I do think that there are places on Earth today where miracles actually look pretty similar to Bible times. In the Old Testament, theremiracles that were only possible by divine intervention. We didn’t have the Holy Spirit within at that time. Jesus hadn’t walked the Earth yet. Today we have the Holy Spirit. You know, God says if we have faith like a grain of a mustard seed, as he says in the book of Matthew, “then you will say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you.” So the process of seeing miracles in our lives is just a process of walking and growing in faith. The more that we increase in faith throughout our lives, the more that we can see the Lord work. And the good news is it’s kind of an upward spiral. You hear the phrase downward spiral, but if you believe just a little bit in God to deliver something he says and he does, then it increases your faith and then you have more faith. Then you ask for more believe for more. You have more comfort in his promises outside of what we can see from the day to day. It’s just a beautiful process of trusting the Lord. We’ve seen in our lives time and time again that the Lord does what he says he’s going to do.
Lindsay: Yeah, I love that. I love the upward spiral picture. I think it’s referenced in every gospel kind of in a different way. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all reference that upon Jesus’s last breath he released his spirit or he breathed his spirit out into us. And so I’m not sure what you believe or what church has preached to you, but we fully believe that the Holy Spirit dwells within us. And so that’s a big reason why miracles might look a little different. We don’t see burning bushes. We don’t see the Red Sea parting. Yes, those are, of course, miracles. And I truly believe that the Lord can still do those things and is still doing those types of things, like Rob said. But here in the United States, where we rely on a lot of different things other than the Lord, um, sometimes he doesn’t act in that way. A lot of times he gives us the grace of acting within our hearts. And that’s a really beautiful thing. It’s a beautiful gift.
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
John 14:26
when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished.” then, bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.
John 19:30
but Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and gave up his spirit
Matthew 27:50
he has also put his seal on us and given us the spirit in our hearts as a down payment.
2 corinthians 1:22
And so we have a couple of stories of how the Lord has worked in our hearts, which I think that it’s important to share. I think it’s important to share that we’ve experienced these miracles. Like Rob said, it’s been an upward spiral for us. I have several miracle stories I could share, but there’s one that has been on my heart since starting this project. When Rob and I started dating, as I mentioned, we started with the foundation of Christ at the center of it. And Rob honestly gave me that gift. I wasn’t quite confident enough to approach a relationship like that because I was only 18 and I didn’t know how that would be perceived from a 21 year old athlete. It was just a real gift for me that he wanted that side of me. So very early on in our relationship, Rob noticed that I had these chronic migraines. I had at least one week that would completely shut me down. I would be in bed, sick, nauseated, miss class, and I just thought it was a part of my life. I didn’t think that there was anything spiritual attached to it. I just assumed that it was a medical diagnosis. I had chronic migraines. One day, Rob explained to me that he thought that this could be there could be a spiritual component to this. He just asked me one night if there were people in my life I needed to forgive. And he started telling me about the power of forgiveness and how biblically we are promised that if we forgive, we will feel a peace that surpasses all understanding. I didn’t quite believe him, and like Rob said about the faith of the mustard seed, I was kind of like, “I mean, OK, I’ll try it. I mean, I know that God can do amazing things, but do I really believe he would work that type of a miracle in me? It might.” At the time I was really struggling with feeling like I’m wasn’t worthy of that. I didn’t spend enough time in my Bible, so why would I deserve some miraculous healing? So, Rob just started walking me through forgiveness prayers, and we spent like three hours forgiving people. I don’t want to paint this picture like I had all these people that had just done me wrong. It was really even just as simple as, “I forgive this person for mistakingly making me feel bad,” but forgiveness for the simple things. Things that I just kind of left harbored in my heart. And the Lord, through Rob, helped me to release that. And I promise you, after that night, I didn’t have a migraine for a full year. And really, I don’t have migraines anymore. I might get some headaches. I might get stress headaches, but now I know what to do. I have my process. I breathe, I pray, I forgive. I really think about, “what’s bringing me down today? Why is my body not feeling 100 percent?” Rob has helped me see that the health of my body is very much tied to my spiritual health. So I fully believe the Lord gave me that miracle. And I’m forever grateful for it because like Rob said, it began this upward spiral in me and I was just on fire to put more faith in Him and see Him work in more ways in my life. So I’m always thankful for that. I’ll always be excited to tell people about it.
Rob: Such an amazing story. And, you know, I have to also mention my parents and their ministry, Rock House Center. They’ve been doing biblical counseling for over 20 years now, and they have incredible results. People whose lives are changed forever. And the whole process really starts with forgiveness as the first step. It is amazing what the Lord does when we are willing to forgive. There’s that verse in Matthew that talks about how the Lord will actually allow the devil to torment us until we forgive others as He has forgiven us. Verses like that get overlooked, but it’s the truth. God says that, and He does allow that. But, when we forgive, we are set free of so much, just as He says we will be. There have been so many other examples of miracles in our lives, namely financial miracles. The Lord has continuously provided over the past six plus years. We’ve had our ups and downs financially, as everyone does. And there have been moments when our family has provided unexpectedly, moments when friends have provided unexpectedly. Honestly, the craziest moment for us financially was probably a couple of years back. We were headed into the fall and we had moved into a new house that had a lot more wrong with it than we knew about. And the AC went out in the middle of summertime.
Lindsay: Yes and I have to mention, we had a room that we called the water feature room because literally every time it rained, we would have to put out, like, twenty bowls.
Rob: Twenty five bowls just catching all of the leaks. I mean, it looked like you had gone to some sort of aquarium and it was the waterfall room.
Lindsay: Yes! Every time it would unexpectedly rain we’d call and be like, “Hey, who’s going home to put the bowls out?”
Rob: Oh we would leave work to go to go set out twenty five bowls and in an unexpected rainstorm.
Lindsay: And like one hundred towels, and it smelled like mildew. This was supposed to be Ellie’s playroom. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that now the playroom has been redeemed. It’s been fully redeemed. We couldn’t afford fixing it at the time, so we would just close the door and when we had people over we wouldn’t let them see it.
Rob: Good times. And so, yeah. A couple of years ago, the AC went out in the middle of July in Alabama. Ellie was one and we were headed to the daycare in the fall. At the moment we needed a new AC because we learned after it went out that it was 20 something years old. Good times. So the AC unit was $7,000, and we also needed to get started in daycare so that Lindsay could go back to work. Daycare was an expense (~$300 a month) that we couldn’t fit in to the monthly budget. So I went in to my employer at the time and said, “Hey, can I take out less out of my paycheck for taxes? I need to find a way to squeeze a few more dollars out, and I’m not sure what we’re going to do.” The lady looked at me and just was shocked. She said, “Rob, you have been overpaying for your health insurance for the past several years and, I’m actually going to write you a check today for $7,000 and your monthly income will be about $300 more. And literally, it was the exact costs of the AC unit and daycare. And you can explain that away if you really, really wanted to, but it’s just unbelievable to me. Those are the types of things that the Lord has done just countless times. I mean, we have more and more examples of those we could go on. We’ve learned that when we are following (and we haven’t always been this way) the career paths that God wants for us and when we are making big decisions that make sense to God but don’t make sense to us, He provides in ways that can’t be explained. It’s one of those things we’ve seen time and time again, and now we’ve begun to expect it.
Lindsay: The definition of a miracle or what a miracle is can be subjective to everyone. For Rob and me, the Lord has worked a lot of financial miracles and it’s probably because we have both worked in jobs that are ministry-minded which doesn’t typically yield a lot of money (and that’s OK), but it is something that when we’re in our flesh, we stress about. So, I think the Lord is gracious to us as believers to work miracles in the parts of our hearts that are hurting the most and or that we are worried about the most. So financially, it’s always been a question for us kind of every job we’re in, every year, you know, is this what we need to continue doing? Because, like Rob said, it didn’t always make sense on paper. We want to grow our family, so what are we doing here? So we just made the commitment to come to the end of ourselves when we get there and decide that we’re going to pray about it. It’s kind of the idea of a white flag of surrender over and over again. That’s what we would come to when we got in those financial situations. And when you pray about it and then things change, we feel that is evidence of God responding. He’s shown us that financially in a lot of ways. So I’m really excited for you guys to hear what’s to come this season. I kind of teasered a little bit at the beginning the types of miracles you’re going to hear about if you follow along this season. There’s a lot of incredible people, a lot of incredible stories. I think you’re going to fall more in love with the Lord and fall more in love with Huntsville and our community. I hope you subscribe to the podcast and listen along, I hope you’re on fire for what God is doing, and I would love for you to reach out if you have any stories of your own you’d like to share. If so, please find me on our website at www.the-miracle-project.com. There are a few submission forms, a contact page, all kinds of ways to get in touch, Rob, if you don’t mind, will you close us out in prayer?
Rob: Absolutely. Lord, thank You so much for how much You love us. Thank You that You have never changed, You’re the same yesterday, today and forever, and that You do what You say You’re going to do. Thank You for working in our lives. Thank You for giving us the ability to have even small amounts of faith. Thank You for proving yourself to us and growing our faith by delivering on the things that You say that You’ll do. We love just Your grace for us. We don’t deserve it, but You love us perfectly anyway. Thank You that Your strength is made perfect in our weakness. We ask for everyone who is listening that You would just give us wisdom to know what’s right and the strength to follow through and do it. We ask that You would help us to spread the Word of Your goodness and that You would walk with us each day. Help us to lean on your grace and to help others to do the same. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
Lindsay: Amen. We hope you guys have an amazing day. Go share His miraculous news!
For more information on Rock House Center, check out their website!
https://www.rockhousecenter.com
