These days, it’s a hard knock life for a Christian. With so much hate, distrust, greed, and disbelief in the world, it’s hard to be comfortable sharing your religion with others. People ask, “Where’s your proof?” “Where is God in hard times?” “Why does God let bad things happen?” “How do you know there is a God?”

There is a lot of questions that I can’t answer, because I’m not the one that must answer them. But I can tell you this… divine interventions happen every day, and sometimes, it’s much more noticeable.  We Christians like to call them miracles.

My family and I were on a road trip to Florida last year in March, and we were driving all the way through. After about half a day, we stopped somewhere in Georgia to get gas and grab some food. My dad was leaving the bathroom, when all of the sudden something small and metal clattered down by his feet, as if it had fallen down from the ceiling. He looked down and picked it up, and it was a wedding ring. Not just any wedding ring, but the same exact ring he had lost almost eight years. A ring that fell off of his hand and drifted down to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

For about five and a half years, we lived on the Big Island of Hawaii when my siblings and I were younger. One of our main sources of income was a fishing charter on our boat, The Adventure, and my dad had taken it out along with my uncle Brian, who was visiting for a week or so, to do some fishing and sightseeing. They were the only two who went out, and the rest of the family and my aunt went shopping.

Unfortunately, there was a storm on the horizon, and the wind picked up, sending the waves crashing onto the rocks like ten tons of bricks. The Adventure was caught up in it, and being too close to shore, was smashed onto the rocks and beached. One thing led to another, and my dad was forced to abandon ship and swam through the deep, rough, black waters towards an inflatable life raft where my uncle was waiting for him.

It was one the roughest days he had ever seen on the ocean, and he could hardly keep his head above the water, straining to keep moving and breathing. In his efforts to swim to safety, he felt his wedding ring slip off of his finger. Even though he grabbed for it and attempted to dive down to catch it, it was gone, headed towards the sandy reef where no one would likely ever see it again.

When he got to the lifeboat, he checked his hand again just to make sure he didn’t imagine it, but it was gone. No one had seen it since that day, and my dad bought a new and plain wedding ring shortly after.

Now, his original ring is very unique. It is a gold band with a black streak through the middle and has three gemstones artfully inlaid into the center, one for each of his three children. He immediately recognized it in that dingy gas station in Georgia, and he was in absolute shock. When he walked back to the car, he could hardly speak and was almost in tears. To this day, he has not taken the ring off. This event had an enormous impact on our family, and it is our favorite miracle story.

There is no way to explain this occurrence through anything of this earth.  No, the ring was not in his pocket, yes, it was the same ring, and no, I’m not making this up. Even after hearing stories like this, many people still doubt. But how can you doubt when there is evidence sitting right in front of you?