Miracles and Other Reasonable Things: A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God - Hardcover

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Sarah Bessey is the author of the popular and critically acclaimed books, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith, Jesus Feminist, and Miracles and Other Reasonable Things. She is a sought-after speaker at churches, conferences, and universities all around the world. Sarah is also the cocurator and cohost of the annual Evolving Faith Conference and she serves as President of the Board for Heartline Ministries in Haiti. Sarah lives in Abbotsford, British Columbia, with her husband and their four children.

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Chapter 1: Lucky

CHAPTER 1 LUCKY

When I woke up in my minivan, the first thing to register was the smell of Tim Hortons coffee. At the moment of the crash, my coffee had exploded out of the cup holder, hitting the windshield and the roof, raining dark roast everywhere.

A panicked face appeared at my car door. He was frantically banging on the door, and a horn—my horn—was blaring. I lifted my head up off the exploded steering wheel airbag slowly, disoriented. Automatically I reached over and unlocked my door, which he swung wide open. I groaned at the small movement. I could move my arm, though—that was a good sign.

“You okay?” he shouted over the horn blaring. “Are you okay? Ma’am? Miss? Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

I had no idea how to answer that question. Was I okay? I had no idea.

My whole body began to shake. I couldn’t seem to move on purpose. Everything hurt right up close to me, everywhere, especially on my left side, but my brain was still far away, wondering indignantly why I smelled coffee and smoke, why the horn wouldn’t stop screaming.

“Don’t move,” he said. “Don’t move at all.” I could hear sirens in the distance. Another car was crumpled on the side of the road; I was horizontal across the highway, facing the west even though I had been driving north. The sun was still somehow shining. I could smell hot tires, see black tire skid marks everywhere. Who knew that crashed metal had such a horrible smell? The airbags were still burning against my body; there was grit in my teeth.

“I saw the whole thing,” the man at my window shouted. “I saw it all. Good God, you’re a lucky girl. Holy hell. I saw that whole thing. Don’t move now; just wait for the guys. The guys are coming. Those are my guys—I’m a volunteer firefighter, miss. Hang in there, now. Jesus.”

“Bri, could you wipe the tears out of my ears?” I was lying flat on my back, strapped to a metal board, encased in a neck brace in the hallway of our emergency room triage. It was an out-of-the-ordinary night at our regional hospital. Maybe there was a full moon; I don’t really know—after all, I wasn’t near a window, and I wouldn’t see the sky for many hours still. All of the rooms were full, the beds were scarce, the doctors were scurrying, the nurses were triage efficient, reinforcements were being called, and I was entirely focused on enduring.

I wasn’t actively crying. I was just weeping quietly without intention. The tears kept coming, pooling in my ears, leaving me feeling like I was swimming underwater. I waited until I could barely hear the noise of the hospital before I asked Brian to wipe my ears out.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” he asked, sweeping a hospital-grade tissue into each of my ears.

“I didn’t want to be a bother,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“I think that ship has sailed,” he said. “This whole mess is super inconvenient for me—bad timing, Styles. Could’ve planned this better, eh?”

He has always called me by my maiden name when he’s feeling tender. He placed his hand gently on my forehead and moved my hair back from my face, tucking it behind the collar of the neck brace, holding my gaze.

“Honestly, woman,” he gently scolded, shaking his head slightly. “Where else would I be?”

A while later, he said, “You’re still shaking, Sar. Are you cold? I heard they have heated blankets down by the nurses’ station. I’ll be right back with one. The nurse told me where to go.”

“Not cold, no,” I chattered. “Just still can’t stop shaking. I’m sorry.”

“I hate the smell of hospitals,” I whispered when he returned with the heavy, warm blanket. “I’ve had enough of hospitals this year. I don’t want to do this anymore. I just want to go home.”

“You sound like your dad,” he said. “We just finally got him home, and now here you are. We’ll get through this—you’ll see.”

“I’m just so tired. I want to go home.”

We fell silent. Eventually a woman sat down near us, wrapped in crude bandages up her arms. “Wow, what are you in for?” my husband asked her sympathetically.

For twenty years now, I’ve watched my husband make friends everywhere he goes. Once we were in the checkout line at a Walmart Supercenter in Texas when I realized we had forgotten the milk. He said hello to the cashier and began unloading the groceries while I turned to run back to the dairy case. By the time I returned with a jug of milk in my hands, the cashier was wiping her eyes with a tissue and he was nodding sympathetically as she said, “And, of course, that just brought up all the feelings of when my dad left us.…”

Brian turned to me and said, “Babe, this is Susan; she was just telling me about her Thanksgiving.”

Of course she was. I wasn’t even surprised by then. People trust him almost immediately. It was part of why I fell in love with him: he was so earnestly and unapologetically interested in people; he liked almost everyone, and they loved him for his unfussy genuine interest, his warmth and steadiness.

Me? I rejoiced when the grocery stores installed self-checkout lanes so I wouldn’t have to ask the Susans about Thanksgiving. My husband thinks self-checkout lanes are an abomination, taking jobs from decent working people: another symptom of disconnection in our society. There is an old adage that married people start to look like each other as the years go by: this is certainly true in my capacity to make small talk with strangers. I have grown from a girl who just wanted to get her milk without making eye contact to someone who is on a first-name basis with the checkout ladies at my corner store.

I often joke that he was born the best kind of grown-up: capable and kind, never in doubt to what is The Right Thing to Do, the kind who makes you relax because someone good is in charge. He’s the sort of man who started saving for university when our babies were all still in diapers, who knows how to fix drywall and plant gardens, who renews insurance and files taxes early by himself, who sticks with the credit union out of principle, who coaches middle school basketball because he genuinely loves to be there. And so, of course, he is here with me.

Back at the hospital, it turned out the lady across the hall from us had been on the wrong end of a pressure cooker explosion earlier. “That’ll teach me to cook a meal,” she said with a good-natured chortle. “Carryout meals from the White Spot from now on, that’s what I told my husband! How about you two?”

“Car accident,” he replied. “My wife was in a crash. We’re just waiting for the CT scan to open up. Busy night here.”

“Poor girl,” she said sympathetically. “Drivers these days. I hope it goes well for you both.”

I couldn’t turn my head to look at her, but she sounded kind.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I said to the ceiling.

“Of course you will be,” she said. “You were lucky.”

They kept chatting as the clock above my head ticked steadily. I felt...