Linda's Lightline

Miracles and Magic
By Linda Woodward

Over the past year I have shared a lot of emotional stories - stories of heart ache, and stories of magic and miracles in my own life. The miracle of the letters that came to me after my dad died. The magic of conversations heard only by hearts. Magic and miracles go together, as I believe both come from God. God is in anything magical - God is in anything miraculous. Yes miracles and magic go hand in hand………

With Mickey Mouse. What??? I have an amazing story of magic and miracles to tell that involves none other than the Kings of the Magic Kingdoms --- God……………..and Mickey Mouse.

In her last semester at college, my daughter Blair took a class titled “Acting on Camera”. Obviously, drawing on emotions is essential to acting. (actually it is essential to anything creative) One of the assignments given the class was to tell, on camera, an emotional story from your own life. Blair shared this story that a friend of hers told for this assignment. A story of magic, and Mickey, and miracles, and God.

This friend of Blair’s works at Disney World, there in Orlando. Disney employees go through training that includes “protecting the magic”. This means that they go to extremes to keep the park magical for the young and the young at heart. Out of respect for the magic, let me just say that this particular girl worked at Disney -- and let me just say that you could say that Blair had a friend “IN” Mickey Mouse. I’ll give you a moment to take that literally.

Another part of the employee training is to help the characters during meet and greets, in dealing with the variety of children they encounter -- children that speak all languages -- and children that speak their own language -- like autistic children. During the meet and greet sessions, the characters, like “Mickey”, are escorted to the park by security who besides protecting the characters also serve as an intermediary between the characters and the children.

On this particular day, Blair’s friend “Mickey” was doing a meet and greet, facing a long line of children. They all get a few moments of “Mickey” time and get to take photos…… child after child after child……

“Mickey”, because of the special training, noticed that the next child in line was a “special child”, probably an autistic child. Blair’s friend, “Mickey,” proceeded with appropriate care in dealing with this little girl, who looked to be around six or seven years old.

The parents brought the child forward when it was her turn and “Mickey” proceeded to assess the situation. The child stood quietly just looking at “Mickey”. Knowing that autistic children may not like noise or touch or colors or sudden movements and numerous other things…… “Mickey” stood still in front of the child. Then Blair’s friend “Mickey” did something that only God could have nudged ---it was a risk at best, but a risk that “Mickey” felt compelled to do: “Mickey” gently reached out and touched the child, hugging her ever so gently.

The child started to scream. Loudly. You can imagine “Mickey’s” horror at this reaction. “Mickey” turned toward the security personnel who was there to handle situations, and this was indeed a situation. The security person was stunned as well, with the screams coming from this child. He turned to the parents, who by that time were hysterical in tears. “Mickey” was looking to the security person to help, feeling they had done something horribly wrong. The security person immediately started apologizing to the parents for upsetting the child but the parents just continued to cry - speechless. Finally the security person told the parents he would get “Mickey” out of the area, as it was “obvious” that “Mickey” had upset their little girl.

The mother finally found her voice. “No. No. Don’t take “Mickey away. We aren’t crying because “Mickey” did anything wrong.”

Both “Mickey” and the security person were puzzled.

The mother continued between her tears: “We are not crying because “Mickey did something wrong. We are crying because this is the first time that we have ever heard our daughter’s voice.”

I was going to tie the ending of this story together but after reading it I decided that there are so many lessons in this story, so much magic, so many miracles, and so much God -- that I am just going to leave it at that and let God speak to your heart….. Because nobody does miracles and magic quite the way God does -- except maybe God, working through Blair’s friend “Mickey Mouse”.