God, Prayers, & Miracles - Part 1

I know there are a lot of people who don't believe in God, who believe prayer is a waste of time, and that miracles are just a coincidence, but my story will show that prayer does make a difference (and no, I'm not going to preach).

In July 1990, I was in a car accident. Now I don't remember being in an accident and I don't remember being in the hospital or even going to work on that fateful day. Hollie was 6 months old at that time, and even though I remembered I had a baby, I don't remember having a baby - the whole being pregnant and giving birth - I don't remember. It's actually a strange feeling not being able to remember part of your past.

But back to the accident. This story has been told to me by my family over the years: When they got to the hospital, the doctor told them I had no chance for survival, because my brain was swelling, and I was losing a lot of blood and was not expected to make it through the night. Now I have family and friends all over the US, so prayer requests were sent out. By the next morning, there was no sign of my brain swelling, but I was only given a 2% chance of survival, and my head injury was so severe, doctors said I might not come out of the coma I was in...doctors said it could be weeks, months or never.

I should stop to explain that there was a newspaper reporter who picked up on my accident, and he wrote three articles while I was in the hospital:

• "Pearl Woman Critical After 2 Car Accident"
• "Pearl Woman Undergoes Open Heart Surgery"
• "Nurses Cry As Pearl Woman Wakes From 3 Day Coma"

I became known as the "Pearl woman" who was in the accident, so there were a lot of people praying, and many pastors from different denominations visited the hospital and prayed with my family.

On the third day, my (ex) mother-in-law (MIL) said I came out of my coma at 10:00 that morning. Later that day, she took Hollie and went to the mall and was talking with a friend when a lady, who had overheard them talking, asked if they were talking about "the woman in the accident", and my MIL told her I had come out of my coma at 10:00 that morning. My MIL said this lady's face turned as white as a ghost. The lady said she was in a prayer group, and the woman in charge called everyone that morning and said she had this urgent feeling that they needed to meet and pray for the woman in the car accident. Then she said, "we started praying for Laura at 9:30 this morning".

My (ex) husband's side of the family is from Massachusetts, and they are Catholic. My MIL said when she got home from the mall her phone was ringing. It was her aunt who said that some church members held a mock laying-on-of-hands for me, where someone played the part of me, and everyone went around laying their hands on "my head" and prayed for healing. My MIL asked when they did this, and her aunt said around 9:30 that morning. My MIL told her, "you're not going to believe this, but Laura came out of her coma at 10:00 this morning". (My MIL said it was the strangest thing.  The doctors would present with a problem, then everyone would gather and pray, and by the next morning, the problem would be gone, leaving the doctors baffled.)

Even though I came out of the coma, the doctors told my family that I may never function at full capacity again.  The doctor said they would have to "wait and see".

My injuries included the head injury, a ruptured aorta, collapsed lung, fractured pelvis, lacerated uterus, fractured knee, fractured fibula and bruised kidney. Many doctors I saw told me it's a miracle that I survived the heart injury, because 98% of patients with a ruptured aorta die before they reach the hospital, and of those who make it to the hospital alive, 60% to 70% die within the first 24 hours.

I was raised in church and have always believed in prayer. I know there are many who have doubts about God and prayer, but if you just open your eyes and mind, you will see that God performs miracles, large and small, everyday.

UPDATE: Since posting this, I have had a lot of emails from people with questions about how can I say prayer works. Does God just choose to save certain people who pray? What about parents who pray for their dying child?

I don't claim to understand any of this.  And I have felt a lot of guilt over surviving this accident, because I had two very close friends who were killed in car accidents within a year or two of mine, and I have asked God many times "why me? Why did I live when I should have died? Why did I live and they die?"   I don't have the answers.  I just have to have faith and believe God has his reasons.

And by the way, God doesn't care if we question him.  He just wants us to pray and have faith that those prayers will be answered, even though he may not answer them in the way we want him to.

God, Prayers & Miracles - Part 2

So I was involved in a car accident in July 1990. It took 10 months to recover. I was unable to walk for 2 or 3 months and had double vision for 2 months, so I was basically a convalescent for 3 months, and I had a lot of time to think..."why did I survive this accident when doctors said I should have died?"

I heard almost everyday how lucky I was, but I wondered if luck had anything to do with it. Then there were those who said, "it must not have been your time yet", but I wondered if it had really been my time and all the prayers changed that...I was confused. I also had 2 really good friends killed in a (separate) car accident. I felt guilty that I was alive and couldn't stop wondering why did they die, and I didn't when doctors said I should have. Why? (I became obsessed with trying to figure out why.)

So I started thinking back over my life...well, my married life. (I had been married 8 years at the time of the accident.) I knew when I got married that he wasn't a Christian, but he wasn't a bad guy, although he did have an odd way of thinking about how life should be and what he thought God should do for him, but that's a different story.

We dated a year and a half, and he did come to church, but only to see me since I could only date once a week. But I really thought that once we were married, I could change him and get him into church. But instead of me bringing him closer to God, he pulled me away. Now I didn't change my beliefs or the way I acted, I just started sleeping in on Sundays, stopped reading my Bible and didn't really pray much. I became one of those lukewarm Christians. I did feel guilty about not going to church, but come Monday morning, I didn't give it a second thought.

So when Hollie was born, I told him I wanted to start going to church, but with late night feedings and everyday baby stuff, we never went. Then 6 months later, I had my accident and that's when I started all this thinking about "why?"

I guess I will never really know why these things happened, but I started to think God was trying to get my attention. Well, God definitely got my attention.

He still wouldn't go to church, but instead of sleeping in on Sundays, me and Hollie started to go to church by ourselves. And over time, I have come closer to God again.

(To see how everything turned out, read my blog "A Single Life")