A homeless woman's name inexplicably scrawled in a soup-kitchen Bible. A dead mother's voice heard plainly on the phone. A house in the midst of disaster spared by the hand of God.

These are just a sampling of the more than two dozen stories related in "Miracles of South Carolina: True Stories of Grace in the Palmetto State" by first-time Greenville author Robbie Goodall Boman. Boman will hold a book signing from noon to 2 p.m. Friday, Dec. 19, at Waldenbooks in Orangeburg's Prince of Orange Mall.

"By the definition of a miracle, they're God-works," she said of the collected stories, written as first-hand accounts. "There are some who have seen angels. ... They are things beyond the normal human experience ... and I do find that most people have had these experiences but are uncertain about sharing them.

"When you mention (miracles) around people, they just jump in and start talking. They interrupt each other. It's just very exciting."

Boman herself is no stranger to the miraculous and includes her own recollections in the book. In fact, she opens "Miracles" with a personal experience she and a homeless woman shared at the Triune Mercy Center, a Greenville soup kitchen where Boman volunteers.

The following is an excerpt from her book:

"In the spring of 2006 Boman came across a homeless woman at the center. She was alone and shaky from any number of possible addictions.

"'What's your name?' Boman asked. 'Want a Bible?'

"'Angel,' she said, and, 'Yes, I want a Bible. ... I want to start over.'

"They went into the quiet, old sanctuary.

"'Come on in here. This is where the Bibles are kept,' Boman urged.

"The woman said nothing as they examined the first. It was too tattered, so Boman reached for the next Bible. It was in slightly better shape, but not by much. She opened the front cover. The homeless woman looked on. They stopped and saw it together.

"Scrawled in large, penciled, capital letters across the front two empty pages were the words 'Welcome Home, Angel.'"

"I felt compelled to start with her," Boman said. "Working with those wonderful individuals (at the soup kitchen), I hear about miracles all the time," from answered prayers to "just straight miracles."

Boman, who worked as a features writer for several years at The Times and Democrat in the late-1970s and early '80s and served as an adjunct English professor at North Greenville University, said she was taken aback when first approached about penning a book on miracles.

Publisher Derik Shelor "had asked a friend of mine to do it some years before," she said. "At first, I said I really didn't think I had the time to do that."

But a conversation with her daughter changed her mind.

"She said, 'If someone calls you out of the blue and asks you to write a book about miracles, you really ought to do it,'" the Tennessee native said, adding that was the push it took.

While most of the stories in "Miracles" are set in the Upstate, there is one with Orangeburg connections, shared by Lib Burlington of Travelers Rest, formerly Lib Arant of Orangeburg, and another that took place at Johnnie and Jean Corbett's Bamberg County tree farm during this year's devastating storm that spawned the tornado that destroyed much of Branchville.

"They're all different kinds of miracles," Boman said. "There are healing miracles. There are small ones, and there are big ones. One man was blind in one eye and was healed instantly." In another, a woman in a foreign country praying about a lost key miraculously finds it.

Boman said such is the way with miracles, adding that every experience below heaven can be classified as one. Her book, however, focuses on stories that stand out as miraculous in a more obvious way.

"These are heightened acts of God, or things we have noticed where He has intervened," she said. "I did not exaggerate them -- I just look for ones that have a certain tone that makes them shine on their own. I didn't go for just flashy stuff. I really went for the integrity of the experience.

"These are everyday people. They are wonderful people, and they are people like you and me. They are believable."

Boman, who serves in the lay prayer ministry at Buncombe Street United Methodist Church in Greenville, is in the process of writing a second book on S.C. miracles. It will be a compilation of stories mostly from her travels promoting the first volume.

"You can find miracle stories all throughout the state that way," she said. "People come up with a wonderful miracle story -- they just volunteer them. Derik reminded me to carry a notebook with me."

Boman, whose book has been popular with people statewide, said there is a two-fold appeal to "Miracles."

"I think there's a universal interest in an exciting spiritual event," she said. "And the local aspect -- people want to read about people they know or live next to.

"Everyone is having a hard time, one way or another," she said, adding that it helps to hear these encouraging stories, especially at Christmas. "I have been blessed to be the one putting them down."

"Miracles of South Carolina: True Stories of Grace in the Palmetto State" (September 2008, Shelor & Son Publishing, $14.99, ISBN 978-0-9761460-1-8) is available locally at Readers Outlet in Santee and Waldenbooks in Orangeburg; online at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and target.com; and from the publisher at www.shelorandson.com.

T&D Features Editor Wendy Jeffcoat Crider can be reached by e-mail at wjeffcoat@timesanddemocrat.com or by telephone at 803-533-5546. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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