The recent recovery of Nadia Bloom in a dense swamp in Florida has many singing the praises of G-d.  Why?  Because James King, the man who is credited with finding her gives all the credit to G-d:

"I see it as an answer to a lot of people's prayers," King told CNN. "I'm just very thankful, I'm thankful that God used me as a part of it to be able to find her. It's definitely a miracle.

King describes the events surrounding his discovery of the missing girl:

"I didn't know where she was. The only person who knew where she was was God, and I asked him and he led me directly to her, straight -- well, as straight as you can go through the swamp."

A recent turn of events lead to a bit of "online archaeology" of sorts:

I was reading a recent CNN article online entitled "In Sudan, a war is waged to eradicate the 'fiery serpent'" and came across this:

Believed to be "the fiery serpent" described in the Bible, the Guinea worm has plagued mankind since ancient Egyptian times. Now it's close to becoming the second disease in the world to be eradicated, after smallpox, health officials say.

This piqued my interest since I was familiar with the story and had always thought actual snakes were biting the people.

The Merriam-Webster Word of the Day for February 22nd was thaumaturgy.

the performance of miracles; specifically : magic

The words origins:

The magic of "thaumaturgy" is miraculous. The word, from a Greek word meaning "miracle working," is applicable to any performance of miracles, especially by incantation. It can also be used of things that merely seem miraculous and unexplainable, like the thaumaturgy of a motion picture's illusions (aka "movie magic"), or the thaumaturgy at work in an athletic team's "miracle" comeback. In addition to "thaumaturgy," we also have "thaumaturge" and "thaumaturgist," both of which mean "a performer of miracles" or "a magician," and the adjective "thaumaturgic," meaning "performing miracles" or "of, relating to, or dependent on thaumaturgy."

Some of you may be thinking... "Magic!?  Why is he bringing up magic in regards to Scripture?".

The Merriam-Webster Word of the Day for March 29th was uxorial.

of, relating to, or characteristic of a wife

The origins of the word:

With help from "-ial," "-ious," and "-icide," the Latin word "uxor," meaning "wife," has given us the English words "uxorial," "uxorious" (meaning "excessively fond of or submissive to a wife"), and "uxoricide" ("murder of a wife by her husband" or "a wife murderer"). Do we have equivalent "husband" words? Well, sort of. "Maritus" means "husband" in Latin, so "marital" can mean "of or relating to a husband and his role in marriage" (although "maritus" also means "married," and the "of or relating to marriage or the married state" sense of "marital" is far more common). And while "mariticide" is "spouse killing," it can also be specifically "husband-killing."

The Merriam-Webster Word of the Day for April 1st was puerile (no foolin'!)

Their definition:

1 : juvenile 2 : childish, silly

(I wonder if their choice for April 1st, April Fools Day, was coincidental?  Hmmm...)