Sometimes just when life has worn us down in the point where we wonder what we are doing here and how we are going to get through the next day, something absolutely miraculous happens. Such an amazing occurrence shakes us to the roots of who we are, it informs us that the divine is at work in the universe; it convinces us that prayers are heard and are indeed answered; it speaks to us that everything happens for a reason and that sometimes God's reasons coincide with our own, even though we have been warned that God's ways are not our ways.

For me, such an event provides a sometimes much needed proof that our "Heart Beats" reporter, Dick Matulis, isn't wrong at all when he reminds us (as he so often does) that "It's a wonderful life!"

In our own lives, that latest amazing thing happened on an "October's bright blue weather" day, the wedding day for Joe, the youngest of our friend Anne's four sons, and his beloved Annmarie. All of us who know Joe were delighted with his choice of a bride. We had watched their courtship and had prayed that they would find their way to saying "I do." To us they seemed so perfectly suited, yet we knew that they, not we, had to discover that! When they did, we felt the joy from yet another answered prayer.

It had not been the first answered prayer for this family. Gratitude had filled our very souls when Jimmy, a major in the Air Force Reserves, with a wife and three young children waiting for him; returned safely from dangerous flying missions during the recent war in Iraq. When Jimmy came home, his family and all their neighbors turned out to welcome him. As he lifted his toddler son far into the air, he smiled as only someone so relieved and so happy to be back can smile.

When Joe and Annmarie announced their engagement, our joy was marred by one sad factor: Joe's brother Jeffrey, a major in the Army's l0l st Armored Division, was still stationed in Baghdad and would not be able to attend the wedding. In a closely knit circle, the absence of one person is deeply felt by all, and there is no way around the sadness. With happiness for Joe and Jimmy, we steeled ourselves against the sorrow that would be ours with Jeffrey still away and still in danger.

We cannot overestimate the personal sacrifices the brave men and women in our Armed Forces make to serve this country. Jeffrey too is a Dad. He has a toddler and an infant, waiting on a base in Germany for his return. They wait with their Mom, his wife, coincidentally also an Anne Marie, an Army anesthetist and nurse, who tends to the wounded, their injuries as shocking as any a war can produce.

Through all this, our prayers continue to be answered, and those answers feel like kisses direct from heaven. Another of those kisses came when the base won its own battle to keep Anne Marie stationed there, even though she too had been called to serve in Iraq, Her absence would have meant that the two little girls would have been separated from both their parents.

Many of my own petitions to God over the past decade and beyond have been for Jeffrey. During the Gulf War, when his Mom and I worked together, we gave up our noon shopping sprees to spend every lunchtime at Mass, praying that Jeffrey, then a lieutenant, would come home safe and sound. We were so grateful when he did.

Then, we prayed through his unforeseen illness, and while waiting for his children to born. In difficult times when Jeffrey is at war, we enlist the aid of my friend, Richard, whose class at Presentation School in Brighton joins us in praying for him.

Our hearts are always filled with gratitude for all these answered prayers. Each one seems a miracle, an unexpected and perfect turn of events, a kiss indeed direct from God to keep us going, a promise that God is with us.

Arriving at the church to attend Joe's wedding, I was frazzled by the fact that I had gotten lost. My husband Dana, who had to meet me there due to a business commitment, had been standing on the steps waiting for me for almost an hour. I was in a horrid mood, so horrid that I needed time to de-stress.

Then I spotted Anne at the back of the church, ready to walk down the aisle on her husband Jack's arm, as parents of the groom. Jack too is one of our answered prayers, having recovered from tricky and dangerous surgery. As I looked at them standing together, all my stress vanished.

Anne spotted me and smiled. Looking down toward the front of the church, she mouthed the words, "Jeffrey is home." I couldn't believe my eyes as I looked toward the side altar and saw him standing there, as handsome a groomsman as ever there could be, resplendent in his Army dress uniform. Tears of sheer joy welled up in my eyes at this amazing answer to yet another prayer.

On that special day, in that holy place, the four brothers stood together. I am not a parent, but oh how I can imagine the joy of those parents as they contemplated the miracle that all four sons had been able to be there.

"You know that I never cry," Anne confided in me later, "but when I walked into the kitchen and saw Jeffrey standing there, I couldn't stop crying."

I'm not even related to Jeffrey, but I still cry when I think about it. He has gone back to Baghdad. Through newscasts of suicide bombings and further hostilities, of casualties and of continued warfare in Iraq, we continue to pray for Jeffrey's safe return home. If you are reading this, I hope that you will join us in praying for him too and for all our troops.

None of us will ever forget the joy of that shining wedding day. The bride and groom were almost eclipsed by Jeffrey, but even they didn't seem to mind. It was truly a day made in heaven.

Christmas is the perfect time to think back on those heavenly days. Each of us has them, though some of us are too preoccupied to take notice of them or too stubborn to acknowledge them. They are the times when the miraculous comes directly into our lives and if we are listening, it absolutely cannot be discounted.

In the Christmas story, the shepherds are the ones who are the most like us. The others around the creche, Mary and Joseph, the Magi and the angels, all of them knew that something miraculous was about to occur. The shepherds tending their flocks on the hillside had no idea, however, that their lives were about to be altered, along with the course of all human history. They were startled into recognition of the divine as the voice of the angels announced to them the "good news tidings of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in David's city a Savior has been born to you, the Messiah and the Lord." (Luke 2:10-11)

Stunned and surprised, they did not ignore the message. Instead they decided to make their own pilgrimage to Bethlehem, to see for themselves this gift of God among us. Not content with merely confirming what they had been told, "they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them." (Luke 2: 17-18)

This Christmas, spread the word about what God has done for you in your life. Recount not just in the silence of your heart, but also joyfully to others, your own perfet moments of surprise and astonishment at the miraculous kisses that God has bestowed upon you.

I imagine that the shepherds probably wanted to stay in Bethlehem, forever gazing at the God Child in the manger, feeling the peace of His blessings and His love upon them. That is not what they did, however. "The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen..." (Luke 2:20)

God calls us to leave the peace of the manger, the sanctuary of the church, the joy of the perfect miraculous day. We too must return to the ordinary surroundings of our everyday lives, and yet, like the shepherds, we must return transformed, knowing in our hearts that God has blessed us, grateful for those blessings, telling others about them, and rejoicing in all the good that God has done for us.

It's difficult to return. My husband always sighs, a disgusted tone in his voice, as he states, "We are entering the Christmas quarter." It is an unveiled reference to the four months our decorations stay up because I so hate to take them down. Once Easter is approaching, I know that I must!

Long after the warmth of the season has morphed into the snows of winter, may the peace and blessings of Christmas and the memories of those special kisses from heaven remain in your heart.