Me, a miracle?

Yesterday I stopped by the Critical Care Unit at Good Samaritan where I spent two weeks in March in a medically-induced coma on a vent. I especially wanted to see Mike, the nurse who had been most involved in my care.



I don't remember much about my time in critical care except right at the end as I was coming out of the coma. What is so interesting is that I don't remember much about reality during that time but I can recite details of my dreams. I can explain the wallpaper in a room in one dream and my brother's face in another. I was sure I was in Boston (which is where my brother lives), at the Good Sam cardiac unit had been taken over by Partners Healthcare (which is where my brother works), and that my brother had flown in a magical machine to save my life (which turned out to be a portable x-ray machine!). Very strange dreams mixed with a twisted view of reality.



Anyway, when I was visiting the unit yesterday, I heard a phrase I've heard often these past few months: "You are a miracle." The folks that were around me during those first couple of weeks in March say the same thing: we didn't expect you to live. But I did. And that is seen as a miracle.



I grew up with the Gospel stories of Jesus' healings and now I preach on them. I've been asked a number of times why God doesn't perform miracles in the world any more. My response is that miracles are happening all around us every moment of every day but we usually explain them away with science, technology, or coincidence. The Enlightenment still impacts our view of the world and we still have a hard time with mystery. We like answers. And we like them now.

So what does a modern day miracle look like? Well, from what I've heard it looks like me. It is a miracle I survived given how sick I was. Given the very high fever and the inability to oxygenate me. Even my pulmonary physician known for his talent and his ego said he did not heal me, that an angel was sitting on my shoulder. So I am a walking miracle.

I have to admit that is not a title I am keen to take on. First, I didn't do anything. I was in a coma. I just laid there (looking very unattractive I'm sure). If there was a miracle, the credit goes to God and the healing hands of grace. It certainly doesn't go to me.

Second, the idea of being a miracle comes with some guilt. H1H1 has impacted thousands of people. Thirty-nine folks died in Indiana alone. More than 340 pediatric deaths have been reported to the CDC. I think of 340 little ones and their grieving families and it makes me shudder. Why was I saved and they were not? I'm nothing special. My friends and family may disagree but as folks go, I am rather ordinary. So why was I saved and others were not?

Ordinary. Those are the folks God uses throughout history. Abraham became the father of a great nation. He was ordinary. Moses brought his people out of slavery and back home through the wilderness. He was ordinary. Mary was a country girl and Joseph a simple tradesman. An ordinary couple. And they all changed the world.

Yikes. What does that hold for me? That's the other struggle I have with the idea of being a miracle. What in the world does God have in mind for me? What am I going to be called to do? Talk about pressure.

A friend suggested that maybe I'm already doing what God wants me to do and that I was saved so I could continue to do it. No great heroics. No parting of seas. Just being me. I've always believed that God doesn't expect us to have extraordinary gifts but that we make ourselves available to God's work in the world. If we are open and available, God will work within us to bring everyday miracles. As a pastor, I've made myself completely available. I've dedicated my life to service in God's church. I want to do my part to make the world a bit more compassionate, a bit more gentle, a bit more accepting. And maybe God needs me to keep doing exactly what I am doing.

This same friend also suggested that I accept the idea of being a miracle because it gives people hope. They can look at me and think, "If God can bring her through near death, God can pull me through this." I can live with that idea. I am in the hope business after all. That is what I try to bring to everyone I meet, a sense of hope in Christ who makes all things possible. So if my being a miracle helps one person have hope, I can live with that. No pun intended.