"The question I ask is what can I learn about the miracles to apply to my own life?"

Exactly! What is important is not whether the reported "miracles" (unusual and striking events) were literally just as described...or whether the stories are allegorical ones in various ways...but what you can learn from those stories to apply to your own life.

That is the crux of the matter.

The writers of the Gospels certainly were authors, each with his own version of the story to tell...and you can see that they bring different viewpoints forward in how they tell the story. The mood in John's gospel is quite different from in Matthew's, Mark's, or Luke's gospels. Then there's Paul, who again has a different slant on things. I look upon them as normal, fallible men who were probably all speaking what to them was perceived as the truth, but from different personal perspectives and with different concerns. So those gospels do serve as a general sort of guide to what happened, but not as the final or perfect authority on what happened. The only way you could have that was to have been there yourself and seen it with your own eyes.

The real question is, as Jack said, "what can I learn about...(the teachings and example given by Jesus)...to apply to my own life?"

Therein lies the challenge, and the possibility.