This is the 20th post for our Write 31 Days series 31 Days of Miracles: Who is Our God. Today, Jennifer L. Lane (see below for her bio) shares her story.
When Anna asked me to share about a miracle in my life for her and Debbie’s Write 31 Days series, I knew exactly what miracle I needed to tell you about, but I was afraid to do it.
I’m going to get brave and tell you my messy story.
I think many people are reluctant to share miracle stories because, we live in a fallen world where most miracles aren’t a permanent solution. No one who was raised from the dead or healed, even personally by Jesus, from our Bible accounts is still alive and healthy. At some point, we all come to the end of our Earthly life, even if God works a big miracle.
My mom was healed by God.
It feels like I need to add so many asterisks to that statement.
It feels like I’m being dishonest if I leave the statement at that, but I believe that she was healed by God 6 years ago.
It was the absolute hardest day of my life. Seven months pregnant, I had been driving all day with my two older kids in the back seat, and my youngest, Gabe, in my bulging tummy. Nine hours of driving behind us and two hours from home, I heard these words through my phone spoken by my youngest brother, “She took all of her pills, everything. She is unconscious. The ambulance is here. They are taking her to the hospital. I don’t know if she’s going to make it this time.”
My brother was frantically telling me that my mom had attempted suicide for the second time in two weeks.
I couldn’t have known that my brother would choose to end his own life only five short months from that moment. I couldn’t have known that my brother would never hold the nephew I was holding in my belly. I didn’t know that this was the beginning of my family never looking the same again.
Ten hours later, I would be still driving, this time without my two oldest kids. Instead, I had my husband in the driver’s seat.
This time we had two hours left to drive to arrive at the hospital in the town where my parents lived, Magnolia, Texas.
Another phone call, this time with my other brother, the older of the two boys. Again the phone call is frantic. “They called a code blue. We could all hear it over the speakers. Her heart has stopped. She has flatlined, and they are trying to resuscitate her.”
I thought of the stories of fear-inducing angels that I knew from scripture. I knew angels could stop donkeys on their path, and God could make said donkeys speak.
I prayed fervently for God to send one of those angels to that room with my mom, the nurses, and the doctors trying to revive her. I prayed that God would physically reach into her cavity and squeeze her heart, cause it to beat again. “I don’t want to lose my mom like this, God. Please not like this,” I pleaded.
I sat on the edge of my car seat, gripping my phone, waiting. For the second time in 24 hours, I was driving in a car, helplessly, not knowing if my mom was alive or dead.
The phone finally rang. It was my brother calling with the news.
She was alive. Her heart was beating again. They had used the defibrillator to shock her heart 7 times, but she was again stable.
After driving through day break, we arrived at the hospital as the sun was beginning to rise over the pine trees cluttering the south Texas skies.
Later that day, I would get to see my mom in her ICU hospital bed. I tried to get some hope of a recovery from the nurse attending to her needs. He couldn’t give me any hope whatsoever. His job was to continue the flooding of fluids through my mom’s body trying to wash out the plethora of prescription and nonprescription drugs she had engulfed herself with.
That conversation was the first time I heard the word coma to describe the state my mom was in.
Why hadn’t I known that this was a coma? Why is everything I know about comas from a television show?
A real life coma is nothing like the portrayals on television, just like almost no childbirth scene is realistic.
My mom was swollen almost beyond recognition, and the room was alive with sound, beeping, alarms, and the ventilator shoved down her throat. The machine was breathing for her, and the sound it was making was nightmare fuel.
I googled coma.
I felt helpless.
I begged friends, far and wide, to join me in prayer.
These were the complications she faced. She needed to come out of the coma. Her oxygen levels were so low when she was brought into the hospital, it was very likely that she had damaged her brain. Also, when they found her, she was laying on her side, on top of her arm. It was possible that she had caused damage to that side of her body. She may need to go through extreme physical therapy.
Over the course of three days, every prayer we prayed was answered. She slowly got better and better. She came out of her coma, got her oxygen levels high enough to remove the ventilator, wrote words on paper that proved to us that she wasn’t brain damaged, and needed no physical therapy.
God had healed my mother. Completely.
Since this healing, my mom has not had any complications from this suicide attempt.
She isn’t whole.
She won’t be whole until Heaven. She still struggles with depression. It feels messy, and this makes me reluctant.
God wants this story told. He deserves glory from healing my mom, and for completely answering so many of our prayers.
God deserves glory for being close to mom during her coma.
“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” Psalm 139:7-12 ESV
God deserves glory for being hope and words of prayer when I was unable to form either.
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.” Psalm 139:1-3 ESV
I have hope, even in my messy miracle story, and I have hope after, in losing my brother. I have hope because of Him. That hope is a miracle in itself.
God put it on Jennifer’s heart to share this story in the winter of 2015. She can pinpoint the moment. In order to make that dream come true, she needs a book deal. In order to get a book deal, she needs subscribers. We would love to help Jennifer with this and so hope you don’t mind us asking if you would consider subscribing to her blog. Then, you can become a part of making this dream come true. And to bless you in return, Jennifer will email you a free 3-week devotional. Thank you, friends.
Jennifer L. Lane is a regular blogger on her website jenniferllane.com. Jennifer and her husband James Lane have ministered in downtown Amarillo for 19 years.
The Lanes and extended family founded the inner-city ministry for children, Citychurch, in 1996. Most days, you can find Jennifer hanging out on Instagram, at http://www.instagram.com/amarillojennifer/. Jennifer has traveled to Ethiopia twice as an advocate for orphans with Storyteller Missions and will be in Ethiopia for the next few weeks visiting orphanages.
The Lanes reside in Amarillo, Texas with their three children. They are also in the waiting stage of the adopting process to adopt a son from Ethiopia. In December, Jennifer released her first book, an eBook called Faith Adventures: Stories of Learning with an Unseen God on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. 
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