When Black & White Feels Different

I’ve recently been gathering my medical records from my initial hospitalization in 2009, preparing for some upcoming appointments I hope to secure. I’ve always known the list of my injuries. I’ve told the story. I’ve lived the recovery.

But reading it… in black and white… is different.

There is something about seeing clinical words, typed plainly on a page, that removes emotion—and yet somehow makes it all feel heavier.

This time, I didn’t just read it.

I studied it.

Because much of it was written in medical terminology I didn’t fully understand, I found myself looking things up—term by term—trying to grasp what was actually happening to my body in those moments.

And what I found… was sobering.

What the Words Actually Meant

One line read: Glasgow Coma Scale: 3–4.

I had to look that up.

The Glasgow Coma Scale is used to assess a person’s level of consciousness after a traumatic brain injury. It ranges from 3 to 15.

A score of 3… is the lowest possible score.

It means no eye opening.

No verbal response.

No motor response.

In simple terms—it means a person is fully unconscious. Comatose. Unresponsive.

That was me.

Another description noted that my pupils were “fixed and dilated.”

Again, I had to look it up.

That means my pupils were not responding to light—a sign often associated with severe brain injury and critical neurological distress.

There were notes describing my breathing as agonal respirations—irregular, labored, not sustaining life on its own. Terms that pointed to a body in distress, not functioning as it should.

There were records of internal bleeding. Swelling. Trauma.

My spine… described in ways that are hard to fully process. Vertebrae fused. Damage so severe that one was likely shattered and removed.

And my liver—injured to the point that part of it was essentially destroyed, leaking fluid into my body that had to be drained.

Line after line.

Detail after detail.

Clinical. Factual. Unemotional.

And yet, the weight of it pressed in on me.

When the Reality Settles In

I’ve always known how serious it was.

But reading it like this made me stop.

I remember pausing… just sitting there for a moment.

Because while I was never declared dead by man’s definition…

reading it now…

It feels close enough for me.

And then—another line.

A line I already knew to be true, but had never quite read this way before.

That my husband died at the scene.

I know that. I’ve lived with that reality.

But reading it, in the middle of all those clinical notes, alongside descriptions of my condition… it hit differently.

There were mixed emotions in that moment.

Grief.

Soberness.

Gratitude.

A deep, quiet awareness of just how fragile life truly is.

A small glimpse into the clinical words that documented my condition, 2009.

What Do You Do With Something Like This?

When you come face to face with how close you came…

When you see, in plain terms, how broken your body was…

You have to decide what you’re going to do with that knowledge.

For me, I cannot ignore it.

And I cannot explain it away.

Yes, I am thankful for medical care, for doctors, for knowledge and skill. But above all of that, I recognize something deeper:

It was the mercy of God.

Lamentations 3:22–23 says: “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”

I read those records… and I see exactly that.

I should have been consumed by the severity of my injuries.

But I wasn’t.

Not Chance. Not Coincidence. God

There is a temptation in this world to reduce things down—to explain them in ways that remove God from the center.

But I cannot do that. I will not do that.

Because without Him, there is no life.

Acts 17:28 a “For in him we live, and move, and have our being;”

Without Him, there is no mercy.

Without Him, there is no love.

Jesus said in John 15:5: “for without me ye can do nothing.”

That includes breathe.

That includes healing.

That includes survival.

Psalm 118:17 says: “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD.”

When I read my records, I don’t just see trauma.

I see a testimony.

Holding Truth with Tenderness

At the same time, I want to say this carefully.

Because I know not every story ends this way.

I know what it is to read the words: died at the scene.

I know what it is to carry loss alongside survival.

The Bible tells us in Hebrews 9:27: “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:”

We all have an appointed day.

And this is not written to diminish grief, or to overlook the pain of those who have lost someone they love.

That pain is real.

And it matters.

But my story—this part of it—is a testimony of mercy.

Do You Recognize His Hand?

So I ask you this, gently but honestly:

Do you recognize God’s hand in your life?

Not just in the big, dramatic moments… but in the things He has brought you through… The things you didn’t think you could survive… The strength you didn’t think you had…

The healing—physical, emotional, or spiritual—you didn’t think was possible…

Do you see Him there?

James 1:17 says: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights…”

Not some things.

Every good thing.

Living Proof

I don’t share this to elevate myself.

And I don’t share it to minimize anyone else’s story.

I share it because I cannot deny what God has done.

I have read the records.

I have seen the words.

I understand, now more than ever, just how serious it was.

And still—I am here.

By His mercy.

By His grace.

For His purpose.

And that is something I will never allow to be explained away.

A Small Piece of a Much Larger Story

What I’ve shared here is only a very small portion of what’s actually documented.

The section I focused on is just a brief snapshot taken from a much larger collection—3,946 pages of medical records from my time at Shepherd Center in Georgia, spanning from August 2009 to February 2010.

Nearly four thousand pages.

Pages filled with daily notes from nurses. Observations. Measurements. Medications. Progress reports. Setbacks. Small victories that may have seemed routine to those writing them—but represent moments I lived through, often without memory of them.

There are detailed records from each therapy session—physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy—documenting what I could and could not do at the time. Movements that had to be relearned. Functions that had to be restored. Progress that came slowly, and at times, no doubt felt uncertain.

Line after line.
Day after day.
Moment after moment.

All of it recorded.

And yet, even across thousands of pages filled with clinical observations and medical terminology, there is something those records cannot fully capture.

They cannot capture the prayers that were prayed.
They cannot capture the moments of quiet endurance.
They cannot capture the unseen work of God.

Because while those pages document what was happening physically… they do not tell the full story of what was happening spiritually.

They record the condition of my body.

But they do not record the sustaining power of the One who carried me through it.

Be encouraged. 🧡 

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