Episode 31 - The Worst Day of Their Lives and the Miraculous Twist of Fate

I'm trying to prepare myself because I just know I'm going to cry uncontrollably today. The show is about a couple whose three young children were killed in a car accident and the miracle that happened one year later. A second segment will also feature a Virginia Tech massacre survivor.

The Worst Day of Their Lives
Chris and Lori Coble describe themselves as a fun loving, goofy family. Three and a half years ago it was the day after their son Kyle's fifth birthday, so Lori took 4-year-old Emma and 2-year-old Katie and  spent the day at a carnival-type set up at a local shopping center. Heading home for nap time, they were stopped in traffic when a semi truck, filled with 40,000 pounds of cargo, slammed into the back of their minivan going over 55 mph. Lori was knocked unconscious, but her mother Cindy was awake and remembers the horrible sound of metal on metal.

The 911 responders say the accident was the worst they had ever seen. Lori and her mother were taken to a hospital for a severe concussion and broken ribs, respectively. Chris was called to a different hospital where two of his kids were, and one by one he found out that Emma and Katie had died. They weren't at the same hospital, so he couldn't even be there to say good-bye. He had to tell Lori, and she says she felt like screaming, because she couldn't understand how they could be dead and her alive. Chris rushed to be by Kyle's side, and his eyes were open which gave Chris hope, but Kyle's brain hadn't been receiving oxygen. Lori was transported to the hospital where Kyle was, and together they talked to him to say good-bye before turning off life support.

Chris describes telling Kyle that he wished he could go in his place, that he wished things were different. He told Kyle that his sisters were waiting for him, and so they let him go. He describes having his hand on Kyle's chest and feeling Kyle's heart stop beating when the machines were turned off and the room went dark. I'm crying too hard and have to pause.

Celebrating Life Over Death
After a break, the Cobles describe reality setting in when they had to pick out caskets; not just one, but three tiny caskets for all of their kids. Lori tearfully describes waking up from a dream, realizing they weren't laughing anymore. She talks about spending a lot of time in their rooms afterward, smelling their beds, smelling their clothes. Oprah tells us that she has the Cobles on to inspire people that no matter what you are going through you can make it. Chris talks about pushing through the pain to talk at their funeral, and Oprah talks about learning this, too, that you have to go through the fire and go through the pain as opposed to living in denial.

Oprah tells us that one reason they chose to do this show is to celebrate the children's lives. She learned on a show with Dr. Phil that when we lose loved ones we focus on the day of the death, playing it over and over like a movie reel in our heads. Lori says that the day of the accident played over in head for years, that she'd close her eyes at night and see the accident. Lori says that eventually their lives, the happy times when they were alive, began to seep in. Oprah asks about a pact they made, and Chris tells us that he and Lori had to promise one another, when going to sleep at night, that they would both be there the next morning, that neither one would do anything to him or herself to leave the other alone. Chris talks about the temptation to escape the grief by taking their own life, because they could then see their babies again. But, ultimately, despite much family and community support, Chris and Lori only had each other to really, fully understand what they were going through.

Something I love is that Chris points out that people say all sorts of things to try and bring comfort, to try and make people feel better. The main ones are, "Time heals all wounds," and, "Everything happens for a reason." He says it's supposed to make people feel better, but it makes you feel more angry because you feel even more isolated. Oprah says Dr. Phil teaches that time doesn't heal anything; it's what you do with the time. The memory never changes and the wound doesn't just go away.

Making Marriage Work
After a break, Oprah says that often these things rip apart marriages. Oprah asks how they dealt with the tragedy in their marriage. Lori replies that, despite the stages of grief, including anger, they made the decision to stick it out. Chris says they started counseling right away and he learned to keep lines of communication open and to remain engaged. Lori's mother Cindy is in the audience and speaks of how strong they have been and how she's been amazed at their incredible strength.

It was difficult to adjust back to daily life. Lori had been a stay at home mom, and so Chris stayed home from work for about six months to help her adjust to the loneliness; after five years of a house filled with toys and children and laughter and fighting, the silence was deafening.

A Miracle Birth
We go to another break, and when we return Oprah asks Lori about the fact that she had spent a lot of time pondering why she didn't die. Lori says she feels she didn't die because Chris couldn't have survived alone; he needed her. After three months, Chris and Lori felt like parents without children so they chose to try and have another baby. Almost one year to the day after the accident, Lori gave birth to triplets. We get to meet them--two and a half year old Ashley, Ellie, and Jay. A boy and two girls. The back story is that after having Katie they were done having children, and so in order to have another baby they had to do in vitro fertilization. They found out that the fertilized eggs were two girls and a boy. They took this as a sign from above, and so they chose to have all three implanted in Lori's uterus and all three eggs survived.

Oprah asks about feeling like the spirit of their original three children survives through their triplets. Lori says yes, that it's like a little tiny part of their Kyle, Emma, and Katie survived. They already tell the triplets about their three siblings in heaven, and they have the same middle names as Kyle, Emma, and Katie. They don't plan to hide the fact that the triplets exist because of the loss of their first three children, and they even go to the cemetery to have a picnic--as much as you can with two and a half year olds--and talk about the memory of the children.

Forgiving the Man Driving the Truck
The man who was driving the truck is a father of three, and he told the judge he was suicidal for what he had done. He was sentenced to one year in prison for three counts of manslaughter. Chris says he and Lori were able to hug the man and tell him that they knew it was an accident and that they forgave him.

Lawsuit
The accident happened because Lori was stopped in a blind curve, so the truck driver didn't see her until it was too late. The Coble's found out that found out where the accident happened had been a problem spot for ten years; they sued not to get rich but because they felt that the system that monitors the roads is ineffective and they hope to see it fixed. They lost their lawsuit and now are being charged with $291,000 in legal fees, plus an additional charge for the trial itself, which they hope to be able to appeal.

Oprah closes out the segment with the Cobles by asking them what they would say to someone else living through a tragedy. Lori says she wants them to know to hang on to their loved ones with all they have. Oprah thanks the Cobles and tells them that we believe in miracles even more now because we've heard their story.

***

Virginia Tech Massacre Survivor Colin Goddard
Colin Goddard was in French class on April 16, 2007when Cho Seung-Hui reached his classroom at 9:43 am. Cho burst through the door and opened fire, shooting Colin four times, once each in the left knee, left hip, right shoulder, and right hip. Two days after the shooting, Colin was on Oprah's special show while still in his hospital bed, one of few survivors with 32 dead.

Oprah asks Colin if he feels like his identity has been wrapped up in being "Colin Goddard, Survivor". He says that he has only been a young professional for two years, so he doesn't have any accolades to list as his accomplishments to put his identity in. That said, like the Cobles, he can relate to the decision to choose what to do with horrible circumstances. He chose that this would not consume him and be his whole life.

After being asked about his scars and if he revisits this on a daily basis, Colin says that it comes up often. He says it's not enough to "take [him] out of the zone", but that things bring it up. Whenever he hears about another shooting he thinks about the families are getting the phone call that someone they love is in the hospital. Oprah asks about returning to the classroom, and Colin says that it was incredibly difficult for any students who had been through the shooting, that someone coming into a classroom late and bursting through the door was traumatic for some students.

Colin is in a new documentary called Living For 32. In the film, he goes undercover to expose how easy it is to get your hands on a gun. Without showing any ID, Colin is able to buy guns all across the country, from handguns and pistols to assault weapons. Oprah asks if Colin has found his calling in doing this work, and he says that he felt like he just couldn't sit on the sidelines anymore after hearing about more shootings after his experience at Virginia Tech.

Oprah inquires whether Colin feels like he has a stronger sense of purpose for having survived such a harrowing experience. Colin says that he frequently hears things like that he must have some higher purpose for surviving, that there must be some amazing thing he's meant to do. Others say God was looking out for him that day, to which Oprah says implies that he wasn't looking out for the other 32. Collin says that both of those are hard for him to take in, and that he simply feels that he was lucky, simple as that. His ultimate goal, in response to being asked by Oprah, is to try to do something about gun violence in this country. He says that on average there are 32 Americans killed by guns every day in this country; that's 30,000 a year, and another 70,000 are shot and survive.

Oprah ends by saying that miracles do happen and thanking everyone, and we're out.

Gospel Filter Review

I've written at length about tragedy, death and being strong on our own power, so definitely check those out if you haven't read them already. I'll touch on tragedy and the character of God again in this review, however.

I said I loved it when Chris talked about the things people say to try and make people feel better-- "Time heals all wounds," and, "Everything happens for a reason." It reminds me of lyrics from the song Breakeven by The Script that I just love:

They say bad things happen for a reason
But no wise words are gonna stop the bleeding

So true. Hopefully I can represent this well, but I have been chewing on this for about ten days now so we'll see how it goes! Recently I was getting a pair of boots and chatting with the guy working the cashier. It came up that I'm pregnant and that we had just found it that it's a boy, and we were talking about naming sons. He shared a name he and his wife love, and I asked if they were expecting as well. He somberly shared that she recently miscarried but that they're still trying. I told him how sorry I was, and he sort of shrugged and said, "Yeah, well, everything happens for a reason." His voice was saying, "It's no big deal, it will all work out," but his shoulders and eyes were saying, "I don't know how to handle pain this intense."

My heart was just ripped out of my chest. I wanted to tell him about Jesus, but the timing just wasn't right. After we left the store, my husband and I prayed for him and his wife. I started thinking about how someone without Jesus handles something like miscarrying a wanted and loved little baby. See, "Everything happens for a reason," is hopeless. If there is no God, then it's just cosmic horrible crap and it's our responsibility to respond well and use it to make us stronger. If there is a God, then it suggests that he is the guy in the sky allowing (best case) or causing (worst case) the bad stuff to happen to "toughen us up." Either way, it sucks. It's still on us to figure out how to make sense of bad things, to be a good enough person to learn from the experience and not let it go to waste. Otherwise, how do we make sense of tragedies like losing our three babies all at once, or being shot in a massacre of college students and teachers?

In this post I wrote at length about, basically, the problem of evil and why bad things happen. I want to paste part of what I wrote in response to the idea that God causes evil or that He is in part evil himself for not stopping it.

No. It's the result of sin and its effects of bringing pain, disease, and death into the world. God's will is that none would perish, but He's patient, wanting people to know Him and He gives chance after chance for people to meet Him (2 Peter 3:9). I don't think it's a stretch to say that God is not sitting in heaven hoping, even enacting, pain and suffering on people. One spiritual being utterly thrives on pain and death, and that is the enemy, Satan.

Here is a great clip that I think well describes the heart of God and why He is not the perpetrator of evil. The whole thing is amazing, telling the testimony of a sweet woman who was hit on her bike last year here in Seattle and nearly died, for whom the result of living brought many painful surgeries and lifelong effects. But if you skip to 7:26, that is where Pastor Mark (the preaching pastor at my church) describes his response to her asking if God did this to her. In sum, yes God is in charge, but no He did not do this to her. God is good, He is love, and Jesus' suffering for us so that we will not experience hell is the greatest expression of God's love for us.

See, the idea that bad things happen for a reason carries a subtle lie about God's character. It implies, as I said before, that God is causing things to happen or at least not stopping them. This suggests that He is not good, but that instead He's a cruel cosmic puppet master pulling our strings and then telling us to respond well. Worst of all, the presumption when you put God's name on it is that He's not only behind horrible things happening but that He then expects you to respond well so He gets the glory.

Again, this is not God. I don't know why he didn't stop that truck driver or have Lori be parked somewhere else. I don't know why Collin was shot. I know God could have stopped those things but He didn't choose to, and while that makes my heart weep I know that God's heart weeps, too. While it's our good hope that God justly welcomed those sweet children into heaven and rejoiced in having them home (I've linked to it before, but this site does a great job of laying out the Bible's teaching on what happens to children and babies who die), the heartache left behind on an earth now absent of them, the pain of death, grieved His heart deeply. He aches to comfort all who still are grieving, and I pray that the Cobles would know and love Jesus if they don't already.

God doesn't want the Coble's to be strong. He died for their sin and for the sin that broke this world and led to unimaginable circumstances resulting in death. He wants to be their strength, their hope, their comfort, their healing, their joy. Only if they know Jesus will the Coble's spend eternity not only with their babies but with their Father, their Savior, and the Spirit who always pursued them their entire lives. I pray they raise their triplets not only to honor the memory of their siblings who passed so young, but as godly parents whose hope is in Jesus Christ and that they pass on a legacy of intimate relationship with Jesus to their children.

Lastly, Colin made me sad as well, because while he is right that he is not defined by being shot at the Virginia Tech massacre, his life's meaning is not in gun control nor preventing future tragedies either. Again, I'm sure I sound like a broken record, but the truth is that only knowing Jesus and receiving forgiveness of sin gives life meaning and worth. Only Jesus can help Colin find healing and peace after what he lived through. His work on gun control is a great thing, don't get me wrong, but it is not meant to be his sole source of hope.

Knowing one's worth comes only from Jesus. The hope for the Coble's and Colin isn't in being strong, or being lucky, or any of the things that people could come up with to explain searching for meaning through tragedy. These verses are on my heart regarding the guests on today's show; I pray that they would know Jesus and that He would write them on their hearts as a living source of hope and joy.

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.


I Corinthians 2:2-5


Up Tomorrow
America's Worst Cooks Get Rescued by Jessica Seinfeld