The Foolishness That Saved My Life
Hye Sung
"Ascension" by Edward Vardanian
by Hye Sung
I think the closest I have ever felt to God was laying on the bathroom floor in a psychiatric hospital with my shirt soaked in urine and knowing that my life was a mess and finally becoming okay with that.
It was 5 AM or so, I think, and I woke up to a nurse rapidly spewing indecipherable words, and I nodded and nodded and nodded to keep her from talking too much, and she pulled a needle out of her cart and poked me and then left.
As she left, I decided to pee. I got up and felt a bit dizzy but I thought nothing of it until I strained a bit to push out my pee. And as I strained, everything became black and I fell on to the floor, pissing all over the bathroom and myself.
I laid there and I felt no reason to get back up. I just did not have the energy and I took it as an opportunity to figure out how the hell I got into this hospital.
I mean, I knew how I got there—it was after weeks of not eating, not showering, not going to class, ignoring phone calls, and pretending to get better so people would not worry. I became a skinny grease-magnet with little joy or hope. And I was planning out how to kill myself, and had been for awhile, and I finally admitted it to another soul. I was told the responsible decision would be to admit myself to this hospital. Did I really care about being responsible? I don’t think so. But as I confided in my friend and admitted my doubts and hopelessness, he consoled me by saying, “Even if you lack faith, even if you lack hope, I believe God’s promises for you. Don’t worry, I’ll have hope for you.” The way he leaned upon God in that moment relieved me of the pressure to believe, and somehow helped me lean upon God, too. I trusted him, and because of that, I mustered up some trust in God.
So I was sent off to the hospital.
As soon as I filled out all the paperwork, I entered the hospital and was bombarded by fresh fruit, granola, and people who were openly discussing what they were diagnosed and their medications. The guy who led me to my room made me take out the laces from my boat shoes. He was kind. He felt bad that he had to examine me nude. I didn’t really care. Turns out he was Pentecostal, and we bonded over the love of Christ and the power of the Spirit. He encouraged me and then took my laces and other dangerous items I could possibly attempt suicide with.
As I laid down in my puddle of urine and thought about it all, it all seemed ridiculous. My life seemed ridiculous. And I was okay with that. I was at peace with where I was at. The anxieties and fears I clung on to for so long did not disappear but they at least seemed far away enough so that I could finally think clearly.
And I wanted to talk to God—catch up a bit. I had a hard time being real with him for a while and I felt like there was so much to say. I compartmentalized a lot and tried to keep secrets from God for so long. As my mind found some peace, I began to realize I was hungry for God. In fact, I was starving… but before I could even think of anything to say to him, I knew the Holy Ghost was there. And it was not that She just entered the room at that moment. Really, She never seemed to have left. I was unable to see God’s hand and presence in my life because I was blinded by my illness. But as my medication kicked in, and as I finally put food in my system, I could see the Light in my darkness.
It was there on the floor, as I soaked in my own pee, that I encountered the Father whose palm I could not be plucked out of. This was the Love, the One, I could never be separated from. And perhaps it was absurd that I could affirm the notion that God was good, that God was Love, and that God was close, after experiencing the closest thing I’ve known to hell, but I’ve come to see that most routes in life are quite foolish. Holding on to hope, believing in creative possibility, and reaching for wholeness and reconciliation, are often counted as futile and naive. Yet Jesus reveals that such foolishness is wisdom, and I’m convinced it is the only way forward. It was certainly my only way forward