Lynn’s Hope Story
“It was a wink from God that things would be alright.”
My friend Lynn Chater is a living example of finding hope, keeping the faith, and worshipping in an empty place. “On a regular Wednesday,” as Lynn put it, she finished a yoga class and decided to walk afterward with her husband, Kerry. A few steps in, she began coughing up blood. Hours later, she was in the hospital, coughing up even more blood.
To make matters worse, this was in 2020, during the panicked throes of COVID. Due to strict hospital protocols, Lynn was not only experiencing a medical crisis during COVID’s worst; she was all alone. Hospital staff relegated Kerry to his car for hours while medical staff bounced around the words CAT scan, lung biopsy, and tuberculosis like toxic ping-pong balls.
Meanwhile, Lynn was expelling more blood by the minute. When a nurse wheeled her toward the elevator leading to the operating room, the blood was seeping through Lynn’s medical mask and down her chest.
“It was a horrifying site and scared others waiting for the elevator,” Lynn said.
The stark coldness of the operating room was another dose of emptiness for Lynn: stainless steel everything—lights, sinks, tools. The only color in the room was the dark red stain on Lynn’s hospital gown and a towel, now bloodsoaked, the nurse had grabbed off a cart on the way to the operating room.
“I looked like the chainsaw massacre had happened on my chest. More medical staff rushed into the room. And then I was under for my biopsy,” Lynn recalled.
Two and a half hours later, Lynn woke up in recovery. Kerry had been frantically trying to call the hospital for a status update, hindered by COVID rules and the unplanned nature of Lynn’s medical procedure.
Finally, a doctor called Kerry and video chatted with him and Lynn, telling them he had excised a large blood clot during the procedure and that the lung would probably have to be removed to halt the bleeding, especially given the fact that Lynn’s mother had died of a rare lung disease.
“For some reason, the news about removing my lung didn’t faze me,” Lynn said. “Maybe that was because of all the drugs they gave me and perhaps because I’m rather partial to my body parts. I prayed to God that whatever happened, He would watch over me. I felt strangely at ease after such a horrifying day. Then, I slept while Kerry went home because he had no other option.”
The following day, a pulmonologist confirmed that a medial team would have to remove Lynn’s lung if they couldn’t get the bleeding to stop. That was when Lynn asked a direct question for the first time:“Does this condition ever cure itself?”
The doctor shook her head and somberly replied, “No.” “Well, then,” Lynn declared, ‘God is going to cure my lung.’ “Those words just came out as normal as any conversation,” Lynn explained. “I knew in my soul that God would cure me.”
Lynn’s confident declaration was an act of worship. The following day, the blood had subsided a lot, but Lynn was still bringing some up. “However, that was my Gideon’s fleece,” Lynn explained. “It was a wink from God that things would be alright.”
Then three members of the medical staff walked into Lynn’s ICU room. One said, “Hi, I’m Dr. Beverly. They call me the Chest Cracker; I will remove your lung.” The rest of the conversation went something like this:
“You don’t have to do that; God is curing my lung!” Lynn declared.
“We have to take your lung to stop the bleeding,” Chest Cracker replied with pronounced firmness.
“But the bleeding has virtually stopped. God is curing my lung. I want to wait another day,” Lynn
replied. Begrudgingly, the pulmonary team acquiesced.
The following day, the bleeding stopped with no additional blood platelets added or anything but saline in the IV. When the doctors came in one by one on rounds, they pretty much said the same thing, “I don’t know what happened.”
Lynn told each doctor with a voice filled with praise, “God cured my lung. It’s an answer to prayer!”
Each medical doctor left Lynn’s room as confused as when they entered. The head pulmonologist at the hospital told her, “I sure wish we knew what this was.” “I looked him square in the eye and said, “God cured me as He told me he would,” Lynn recalled. “The pulmonologist looked at me and said, “Yes, I guess that’s what happened.”
After five days in ICU, Lynn walked out of the hospital, praising God: “He is a miracle worker, and I will praise Him until the day I die!”
Want to read more Hope Stories? Check out Charlie’s book, Hope in Empty Places.