Coming Back From “Hell”

It was a beautiful and typical summer day on August 29, 2020 as Chris rode his motor cycle down a stretch of road known as M52. He hadn’t a care in the world, or so he lived that way. Chris saw the world as his personal playground and treated others as though he were the proverbial bully on that playground. He showed no consideration to anyone’s feelings and believed the sun rose and set just for him. These are the feelings that my friend Chris Kott expressed to me in a conversation that would bring him back to that faithful day.

Chris had been on a pretty dark path at that time and he lived quite literally in the fast lane. He was an avid bike enthusiast and drove his midnight black Suzuki at speeds that would scare even the most seasoned riders. He also fled from God at those same speeds. As Chris was making choices that were less than exemplary, he would make one final choice before his world of selfish actions would come crashing down.

Having been separated from his wife of twenty-five years, Chris found himself in a relationship with someone else and continued his reckless lifestyle. He was returning from a town up north in Michigan Called “Hell”, when he got waylaid by a line of traffic. A line that he wasn’t willing to wait in. Stopping for only a moment, Chris gave a sharp twist to the throttle and poured on the speed. Jetting out around the line of cars, he shot to the intersection clocking over one hundred twenty miles per hour and his life changed forever.

A Lexis held the front car position at the intersection. Appearing from seemingly nowhere, a man on a motorcycle collided with the front fender of the Lexis as it made a turn, catapulting the rider over one hundred and twenty feet and landing with almost certain death. A blur of events happened and Chris has no memory of the accident. He spent the next two and a half months in a coma. Because Chris had made choices that devastated his family, many people advised his wife to simply leave him to be a ward of the state. Remembering her own commitment to this man, she could not just leave him in this condition. This wounded, but oh-so-strong woman stood by her husbands’ side as she learned of his traumatic brain injury. The frontal lob of Chris’s brain had been sheared and he had five brain bleeds. It was not likely that he would survive. His wife prayed for a miracle.

She gathered those she felt would diligently lift her husband and family up in prayer. Chris died twice in the hospital and was revived. It was time to start facing the truth that he wouldn’t be coming home. There would be no restoration to their marriage or family. It would all end there in that hospital room. Or would it?

Though Chris should not have survived that accident, he didn’t have any internal injuries to his body from the impact. However due to the brain shear, the doctors advised Chris’s wife Amy to begin researching homes to put her husband in after he left the hospital. He would survive, the medical team surmised but he would never be the same. The brain injuries he suffered would be life altering and she would never be able to endure what the “new Chris” would be like. But the miracles would continue.

It was amazing miracle after amazing miracle for this man that God had another purpose for as he continued to defy medical logic. People don’t just survive an accident like his. Then those miraculous moments when Chris’s eyes began to flutter open after two and a half months in a coma were more than Amy could have hoped for. Chris spent only minutes in wakefulness before slipping back into sleep but it was the signs of life that the family feared would never come. As days past, Chris offered more and more glimpses of restoration and after some time, he was fully conscious. He knew who his wife was and he showed no signs of the violent combative person that the Doctors had warned Amy he would likely be.

Amy expressed her eternal gratefulness to God for not only sparing her husband’s life but bringing him back to the man she had once known. She took the words found in Luke 1:37 which says “For with God, nothing will be impossible.” (NKJV) and grabbed a hold of them tightly. She found tangible proof in that Bible promise. It has become her life anthem.

There is much more then this to proclaim in Chris’s phenomenal miraculous testimony but after only six months, he was home and has recommitted his life to his wife, his family, and most importantly his God. Although Chris had to have his leg amputated just below the knee due to an abscess, he essentially came away from his should-be fatal accident with no marked evidence of the crash. No personality changes, no cognitive impairments, no verbal complications. This shouldn’t be medically possible… unless you have the Great Physician as your Doctor. His journey is spectacular and inspirational and a living breathing testament to the incredible unfailing power of God! I hope to one day share with you Amy’s side of this journey and it too will be nothing short of providential. So you see… Chris began this journey while on his way back from a town called “Hell”. He also returned from the road to hell with the path he was on. He was most assuredly “Coming Back from Hell”.