The Mechanics of a Miracle

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While we all know academically that God is good, has a plan for our success and watches over His children, few of us get the chance to witness God’s plans and desires for our good through the compressed lens of a tragedy averted.

Kate McIntyre and her family have done precisely that. God had a plan for Kate's family that involved lifting His name high through the telling of this story, but it would take them to places and through circumstances that no sane person would ask for.

Kate was a newly remarried mother of two and stepmother to two more who, at age 31, went out for a bike ride and woke up days later in the hospital with a hole in her memory that eventually spanned weeks. God, through His grace, saw fit to peel back the layers of the miracle that resulted in her survival so that through its telling people’s lives would be changed.

Doctor’s in their candor can be insensitive. Kate’s husband Tim was told by one doctor that Kate would not survive, but if she did, she would certainly need a lifetime of care. Five days after she was admitted to the hospital, she walked down to the Emergency Room and thanked the staff herself for the incredible job they did of keeping her stable once she arrived and lives were changed.

Paramedics can spend a lifetime in service to others and not receive any recognition from the ones they serve. The team that was uniquely put together on that day in 2008 for this one purpose, unbeknownst to them, has won awards for their handling of the situation. They all talk about how, “Kate is the one. You know, the one incredible, once in a lifetime ‘save’ every EMT wishes they could tell everyone about.” EMT’s have a rough existence, because too often, even though they are heroic, selfless servants, the victims they treat are too far gone by the time they get there. Kate survived until they got there, and lives were changed.

Cardiac Surgeons do incredible work in the operating room every day, but Dr. Joseph Rowe saves lives even on his days off. He was driving across town on his only day off in quite a while to see his lawyer when he passed the scene of some sort of accident. God whispered, “They need you.” He stopped, and lives were changed.

The news of Kate’s “incident” –no accident—traveled quickly across the Roanoke valley. People started praying and spreading the news. David Klein came to the hospital to tell Tim one thing. David didn’t even know why he needed to tell him. He just knew that he had to. David told Tim, “I just need you to know that I became a Christian a month ago and Melissa and I will be praying for you,” and Tim’s life was changed.

The Mechanics of a Miracle does more than simply tell the story of how Kate McIntyre survived Sudden Cardiac Death and an Anoxic Brain Injury. It shows us how God is at work around us all of the time. It is a unique look into a family’s journey through death and back to life with the perspective all along that God was doing something. It gives us an intimate view into the miraculous, but also challenges us to see the miraculous among the mundane.

God doesn’t always send a Triathlete Cardiac Surgeon to our side to perform eight minutes of non-stop CPR. He doesn’t always assemble a team of cardiac responders in one ambulance that were totally “out of position” to where they normally would be. He doesn’t always send an ex-wife’s boyfriend to our side specifically to tell us that God is at work.

All of these seemingly huge things have shown us that God is at work every day. It doesn’t always fit the mold of a “Miracle”.