Miracle from Heaven

February 23, 2016

Miracles surround me.  I suppose I’ve noticed or been aware of this phenomenon from time to time in my life…or at least gave the thought a nodding glance on rare occasions.  But tonight the certainty consumes me.

I am attending the National Religious Broadcasters 2016 International Convention in Nashville this week with students and colleagues from Louisiana College.  It’s been enlightening thus far, and I’ve made some incredible connections with folks from Christian colleges and universities from across the country and one from Germany. I even met Joni Eareckson-Tada this morning and was instantly transported to childhood shopping excursions to the Christian Book Shoppe that used to be on Pass Road in Gulfport and The Love Shop in the Singing River Mall in Gautier, the places my parents went to for Christian LPs. 

Tonight, after the opening session, which included hearing from Roma Downey, movie producer and former star of “Touched by an Angel,” and listening to “The Voice” winner Jordan Smith belt out two hymns and an incredible rendition of “Over the Rainbow,” and hearing from HB Charles Jr., a pastor of a Los Angeles mega-church, and whose lack of an actual name (his name is H B) puzzles me greatly, we were invited to stay and watch a film screening of “Miracles from Heaven” starring Jennifer Garner.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly disappointed that Garner was a no-show, but knowing the film was based on a memoir interested me.

“Miracles from Heaven” tells the story of the Beam family from a rural area of Texas, whose middle daughter Annabelle becomes ill and doctors can’t seem to figure out what is wrong with her.  After misdiagnoses and months-long wait to get in to see a leading child gastroenterologist in Boston, Christy Beam and Anna fly to Boston without an appointment to see Dr. Nurco.

To avoid telling the entire story, Anna is diagnosed with an incurable intestinal disorder.  She finally, after suffering constantly for four years, tells her mother she wants to die and go to heaven.  Anna’s faith in God never waivers, though Mom Christy admits great struggles with hers during her daughter’s pain. 

Anna returns home from Boston, and her older sister convinces her to come climb the large tree in their front yard for old times sake.  And on this particular day, despite her pain, Anna feels well enough to give it a go. The limb the girls climb to, about 30 feet off the ground, cracks and begins to give way and they hustle to get back down the tree. Unfortunately, the tree is hollow, and Anna falls down the entire height of the tree and gets lodged inside, unresponsive. 

Emergency responders rescue the girl, who miraculously has only scratches from her ordeal.  And the next day, this girl who has been violently ill and in pain for four years, has regained her strength, her abdomen is no longer distended, and she forgets to take her pain medicine.

The explanation from science—spontaneous remission.  The Beams’ explanation—a miracle from heaven. But Christy realizes that her daughter’s healing wasn’t THE miracle.  She realizes she has witnessed many miracles along this heart-wrenching journey.  I encourage you to read the book and watch the film for more specifics.

Because THIS is about my reality.

It started around Thanksgiving 1996 in Springfield, Missouri, and had gotten progressively worse.  Hundreds of blood tests finally revealed by early 1997 that I had a severe case of ulcerative colitis. By September 1998, my doctor sent me to Oschner’s in New Orleans to have a colonoscopy.  My colon was so ulcerated by this time that despite being completely sedated, I woke up screaming during the procedure. 

Two days later, I was at work lying on a couch in my boss’s office praying to die. Pain had consumed me for so long I didn’t remember what feeling “normal” was like. 

My co-worker rushed me to the Garden Park Emergency Department.  After tests were run, an ER doctor told me I had two infections in my bloodstream that would have most likely killed me before the end of the day had I not come to the hospital.

I was hospitalized for 21 days… more than two weeks of it, I barely remember.  I was so ill that when Hurricane Georges hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I was the only patient on the floor that could not be evacuated.  This, of course, I only know because I was told and I noticed a lot of downed trees and debris upon my release in October.

My then-gastroenterologist “fired” me as a patient because my 26-year-old self refused to have him remove my colon, which would have effectively cured my disease.  He told me I would never have any more children, and I should consider myself lucky to have had children early.  My boys were 2 and nearly 4 at the time. 

I was in so much pain that the nursing staff had to take away my Demerol drip because I was developing colon toxicity from the amounts of the pain killer I was consuming.  My veins were so blown out from all the IV’s and needle-sticks, that a central line had to be inserted to pump life-saving fluids into me.  I still see the scar in the mirror every day. A sign of life.

So tonight, listening to the REAL Christy Beam tell her story and the doctor telling her that most marriages don’t survive that kind of life-changing illness, some of my guilt  and “why-me’s” washed away. 

Though I’ve told doctors over the years since that I am a miracle, probably because my mother first claimed this over me years ago, I never really internalized just how true—how marvelously and unexplainably true that little statement is until just this moment.

I’m overwhelmed and unsure exactly what to do other than to write all the emotions out of me.

Tonight, I share my miraculous journey with you.  Today, the mother of five, (I gave birth to two more children and was blessed with a beautiful stepdaughter and now granddaughter), I realize miracles happened along the way to bring me to this day, to this very spot on Earth. And UC, itself, was a kind of miracle.

After my gastroenterologist fired me, Dr. Warren Hiatt took over my case.  He recognized my stubbornness; He prescribed blood transfusions and mega-steroids, but he, by the everlasting grace of God, saved my colon and my life.

Over the several month recovery process, I regained strength slowly.  My sister Kathy took a leave from her job in Massachusetts to care for me and my little boys. Unfortunately, as Christy Beam mentioned, my marriage did not survive. And I’ve struggled with that guilt for nearly two decades.  A weight has been lifted tonight in this place. Being here, in itself, is a miracle.

Every single step and misstep brought me to this place.

Miracles.

Last summer, I made one of the hardest decisions of my professional life.  My husband and I agreed to leave Connecticut and move to Central Louisiana the summer I was preparing to go up for tenure at the University of New Haven, a position I loved.  

During our summer visit to my sister’s, I was not expecting a call from Louisiana College for a division chair position I’d applied for on a whim several months before, probably when I was staring out the window at several feet of snow.  

In the week that we had been in Lake Charles, my husband and my dog Emry had been attacked by another dog, requiring surgery on both.  Lance had also been in a traffic accident with a drunk driver in Houston, which necessitated major surgery on my truck.  So, we should have been keen on getting back to Connecticut. 

Still, I agreed to go to the interview, and it was good. The people were great.  The facilities, not so much.  There were swimming pools catching water in a classroom and the theater.  The one student journalism lab had a half-dozen computers.  This was a far shot from the multi-million dollar facilities at UNH. Of course, I'd worked as a journalist with less, and I realized the bells and whistles are not what make great work.

I was offered the position, I prayed, I debated the pro’s and con’s. I wanted someone else to make the decision for me.

Then He answered me. 

My sister came in from one of the endless meetings with her attorney, beaten down from the constant emotional turmoil surrounding the demise of a 20-year marriage from a person hell-bent on her destruction. 

Instantly, I knew why we were here.  It was my turn to be strong for her, just as she had been my miracle in 1998.  And this job opportunity was another miracle on my journey. 

Tonight, I believe every person, every sickness, every job, every “wrong” turn, every time I got stuck in traffic, every time I went left instead of right, or changed my major, or spoke to that stranger in line at the grocery store . . . every time, every place, every person allowed for me to be exactly where I am tonight. 

To hear Christy Beam’s message.  To realize every single step I have taken was necessary to lead me here. 

And the clarity of this in itself is a miracle.