The Miraculous Part 3
January 20, 2026
The Miraculous Part 3
Sometimes, we open the treasury of our soul, and a memory comes to us again, but from a different perspective. This reflection is one of those. Though this story is the subject of another Daily Reflection some time ago, it came back to me recently but with a different focus.
Many years ago, in my clinical psychology practice, a gentle and grieving woman came seeking help after the recent death of her husband. Her sorrow was immense, but her more profound concern was for her eleven-year-old son, whom I will call Jack. His pain ran so deep that it erupted in anger—outbursts at home, disruptions at school, and a silence that seemed impenetrable.
That month, a Family Practice resident, Dr. Brad Ward, was shadowing my sessions. One day, he sat quietly in the room as Jack tried, and failed, to put words to the turmoil inside him. Jack’s discomfort mounted until, in a flash of anguish, he hurled a heavy chair across my desk, snapping one of its legs. We restrained him until he could breathe again. Jack was drowning in grief, and it showed. I told Dr. Ward that such severe acting out would likely require months of intensive therapy.
But Brad, who had grown up on a farm in Cartersville, Georgia, saw something else. “I know he’ll need a lot of therapy,” he said, “but I think we can shake him out of this anger in a good way, and real fast. If you and I took him up in my airplane, he might see things differently from the air and from within himself.”
It was an unexpected suggestion, but a wise one. In psychological science, we call it “in vivo” therapy because it is done through direct, consequential, real-life experience. Jack’s mother agreed. And soon Jack, Brad and I were on a small grass runway out in the country in Brad’s Cessna. The takeoff was beautiful as we soared into the skies in Brad’s Cessna.
Jack had never flown. But that day he entered another world, a world where grief loosened its grip. From the sky, he saw his home, his neighborhood, his city. He gazed at Mount Cheaha, the highest point in our state, and at the vast waters of Lake Logan Martin. We flew over fields, towns, and miles of countryside.
At first, Jack was silent. Then something opened. He started asking questions, pointing, laughing, and rediscovering, even if only for a moment, the part of him that was still a boy on an adventure. That flight cracked the shell of his grief. His therapy blossomed from that point forward.
Years later, I stopped for gas at a Chevron on our main road. A man in a coat and tie stood across from me at the pump. Our eyes met. And in that instant, we both recognized each other.
“Jack—is that you? I haven’t seen you since you were a boy.”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s me, Dr. Howell.”
“How is your mother?”
“She and I are both doing OK.”
We shared a smile of deep remembrance. We were both thinking of that long-ago flight, one that changed him “in a good way, real fast.”
Spiritual practice: In vivo therapy means transformation through real-life experience. Sometimes it is arranged by a therapist. Sometimes life arranges it without asking our permission. Reflect on your own life: Have you had an experience that shifted you—suddenly, unmistakably? Was it spiritual? Was it healing? Was it a moment that left an indelible mark on who you became? Explore the power of direct experience to move the heart and awaken the soul.
Self-inquiry: What real-life moment changed you in a good way? What experience lifted you, shifted you, or opened you to a new possibility?
Prayer:
Dear God, For the experience with Brad and Jack, I am forever grateful. You used these two souls to make a way where there seemed to be no way. I pray for Jack’s continued healing and for the gifted hands and heart of Captain/Dr Brad, who is no longer with us. Thank you for his creativity, his courage, and his willingness to extend himself for a hurting young man. Amen.
