You were my one hope that there was actually good in this world. That the fight was worth it. That there was a plot and a reason to go on. To keep at the work.
What happened when that fell apart? When you fell apart?
A very dark season. But I hesitate to even speak on it. To give it more power than it deserves. Because it needed to happen. And you specifically aren’t the point.
I’m the plot. I’m the reason.
I’m the fight. I’m the work.
The good in this world is me.
Too much? Well, consider the source. Of judgement. Of hate. At that statement.
I don’t mean me exclusively. This is poetry, this is art. In word form.
I now see. I wasn’t in love with them as they actually fully are. I was in love with how I felt about them. I was more so in love with my love. With who I am.
And love always wins. The one who doesn’t give up. Who perseveres.
Not because people change. At all.
But because it feels good to be in love. To be in the constant state of love. Of loving.
Maybe some hopium in that. Maybe better referred to as copium.
But what’s the alternative? Yeah, spent more than enough time there. Trying to take all the fun out of life and living. By reducing everything down to predictable formulas.
Here’s a formula for you: everybody is going to mess up. And yet there are still times to be had. Where everything doesn’t feel as horrible. What’s a genuine laugh worth? A genuine smile? A genuine hug? A long, long talk with someone who understands?
I can’t even fully save myself. But I’m the only one I have even a measure of control over. So how will I spend what is left?
Society says I am a failure. Culture around me says I am a failure. The people I referred to as friends see me as a failure. I know it. I see the looks. I hear the silence. Words get back to me.
There’s nothing I have to do. Regardless of what others say.
We can’t take any of this physical stuff with us. I’m not opposed to comfort. I appreciate having more than I have now. But what’s the point? Of your life? Of you? Why are you here?
You sit around for Christmas and your birthday and you open gifts. Put them to use.
Wouldn’t it be weird if you locked up all the brand-new gifts for “safe keeping” and never put them to any use?
People do that.
But what if we never ever get to come back here like this again? What if this Earth and our time on it is such a gift?
That we don’t fully appreciate because we are so goddamned worried about being accepted? By God and then everyone else?
So you’re telling me you didn’t chase or your dreams because someone who isn’t chasing theirs wants you to be as miserable as they are?
Who are you trying to impress? Whose acceptance are you working so hard for?
I’ve been more than once: on the operating table for emergency surgery. I was told that if they didn’t operate then I would die. It’s in those moments when things become crystal clear. When you understand what matters.
I’m so thankful I had those opportunities. Because I was given a chance to figure out my regrets before the actual end. What I wish I would have done differently. With some extra time to make changes and go after what is left.
Every day we have that opportunity. Every second. Just most people don’t take it seriously. Most people operate like time isn’t draining away from them at such a rapid pace.
This isn’t so much a simulation as it is a trip. A soul and/or spirit safari. In the experience of being alive in human form. A fantastic adventure at best. Adventures. When we can relax more – and not act as if Earth is all. As if God doesn’t fully Love all of us eternally.
What would you do differently if everything, and I mean everything, was going to be okay in the end on the other side?
What would you do differently if you knew that our experiences are very much real but the weight we put on them in terms of a bigger picture may be skewed? As in the pain is very real but the narrative of what it all means may be conflated? Not enough hope in our limited narratives. Like very young children who don’t know enough to fully understand. God’s absolute always redeeming Love for us despite how we sometimes mess everything up?
When I went into the psychiatric hospital, there was absolutely no therapy or counseling offered. Not even one conversation about exploring the reasons why we ended up there.
It was 100% a money grab. Just an intake evaluation and then basically a survey an hour or two before discharge to ensure they aren’t held liable for negligence in discharging you.
It takes a strong person to be able to face that even at your weakest there are finance bros exploiting your worst pain for monetary gain. Without even so much as flinching at adding to your very real distress.
The only goal was to keep you alive long enough to extract every last dollar of funds from you and/or your insurance provider. That was absolutely it.
De-fucking-pressing. On top of everything else. America for you.
I can’t even think of it very long without being very negatively impacted. Not because I am in denial. But because there is no other option but to survive.
Or not.
And I am choosing to be here now. I came out on the other side. I am worth the fight.
Or at least the possibilities of whatever enjoyment is still left. Fuck it – exactly.
But my whole point in bringing this up is to say it was the suits, the people in coats, with degrees and licenses and PhDs who let me down. Who opted out.
And the story could have very well ended there.
But almost immediately a surprising better narrative emerged. The one I clearly needed.
That over and over again the people who were supposed to be the broken ones were stepping up without even be asked. Even in their most pain we were seeing each other and stepping up. Even with society and our neighbors and our families looking down on us as having lost it all, I saw people give over and over and over the very little they had left. From specifically their smashed, crushed, and devastated broken hearts. Even minds.
One day I woke up and asked God for Jello. Yes, Jello. Just a little bit of happiness in such a depressing place.
And God didn’t open up the roof of the psychiatric center and hand me some Jello. Jesus didn’t walk through the locked doors and hand me a Jello. Holy Spirit didn’t physically manifest in the day room with Jello.
More importantly not even any of those who were supposedly the care providers. More like jailors. Well-meaning as probably when they initially applied for the position. Before they had to shut off their feelings in order to stay there in that wicked place. For their financial survival. The patients be damned.
No, it was the broken. The weak. The sad. The suicidal. The depressed. Who came to my rescue.
A patient who saw me and without even knowing my prayer that day, she had the desire to share what little we had. And asked me if I wanted her Jello.
Not a little thing in the moment.
Something so “stupid” brought me hope again. Not only that God still saw me. And still cared. Because if the Jello never happened I honestly would have been certain this deity business was finally a crock of absolute shit.
But more importantly that if we could stop for two seconds giving into those trying to manipulate us non-stop specifically with fear…
If we’d put down these damned phones, these damned devices, the damned remote…
If we’d actually go be with each other without being so caught up in performative outcomes…
then at least my hope was restored again. Not only in God. But maybe more importantly in humanity.
That it’s messed up but not all bad. That people still are trying. Even when they’re barely keeping from going under.
That was surprisingly inspiring.
And exactly what I needed.
Even the private equity folks heartlessly profiting off the worst times in a person’s life. Not even flinching at adding to the pain. Enormous and enormously. Even God was partnering with them.
Because that was probably the first time in my entire adult life that I was stripped of literally everything for more than 24 hours.
Which ended up being exactly what I needed. To jumpstart my heart. My mind and my spirit.
Not the meds. Not the non-existent therapy or non-existent counseling. Not the sub-par casework. Or basically not there care.
No, what they did out of pure profit – no matter how painful it was to us – ended up being exactly what I needed on many levels: stripped of all my distractions. All of them. All my coping mechanisms. All my ways of hiding. Of seeking safety.
Half the time all I literally had was a hospital “gown” and a Styrofoam cup of water. That was it. Nothing else.
No phone. No computer. No tablet. No music. No distractions.
Nothing but myself. And my neighbors in the facility. That I was required to be in close enough quarters with that I couldn’t find any of my usual escapes.
No vacation. I assure you that.
Not even the luxury of sleep. Interrupted all night long every fifteen minutes by some very diabolical people referred to as medical professionals.
Their compassion fatigue having morphed into what many probably saw in the faces of their neighbors who loaded them onto trains and into gas chambers several decades ago.
I saw that also. To be sure. And it would have even more so ended me if it wasn’t for Love showing up as it did in spite of all that.
In an absolute void. Everything you picture in the most dramatic sense – a soulless facility. Even there real hope showed up.
Not hope in God. So much as hope in the humanity of those at their absolute most broken point. With so little to offer.
Not the “rich” ones. But the have-nots. The less-thans.
The one girl who although she couldn’t eat, shared her Jello with me. That day and then every other. She made note to seek me out and save it for especially me.
When she didn’t have to. When she could have otherwise chose to give into the despondency of everything in and outside that place.
Or the lady who probably broke after a lifetime of surviving. Whose defense mechanisms finally failed. Who spent days crying and literally screaming.
Who would rage at everyone with the slightest perceived provocation. Whether intended or the complete opposite.
She was the one who had visitors bring markers that were approved by staff. Which she generously shared with all the patients. When she didn’t have to at all.
To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have shared like she did. In the state I was in. But I used her markers all day every day to save my mind from losing it even more.
Her markers and the Jello.
Not strength. Not degrees. Not licenses. Not intellectual or even theological dissertations.
Just Jello and markers.
There were days I didn’t even have underwear on my lower regions. Or to hold up my massive boobs. Everything exposed. Everything I usually hide behind. Completely gone.
And God didn’t give me answers in terms of nice intellectual narratives. Nope, just Jello and markers. Lived experience that really needed no words. I bastardize the beauty of it all when I reduce it down to this. Especially without censoring who I share it with.
But this is my art. And my heart.
And I finally know it’s okay. Not to be everything. Or even enough. For those that matter to me. And also everyone else.
God showed me I didn’t have to be strong.
When two patients cried and hugged me. After I gave them my art that I made with the markers.
What I generated to try to navigate anxiety that literally almost killed me. I saw them very interested while I created it. At least more than the others.
And they never said a thing. They never asked. But when I offered them my art as I finished it, they literally cried with thanks.
One girl even texted me after discharged. Showing she hung my art up on her ceiling.
All the normies out there. Sitting in their big houses. On their big bank accounts.
While I ended up literally under a bridge. With not even a penny to my name.
And the “normal” people looked and look down on me. Making the situation even worse.
But now I get it. Now I understand how “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God”. Not a physical place. But a state of being.
What I earned in my brokenness is something all your strength and money can never buy. I’m not better than you. Or more spiritual. But I was given the gift of freedom that you can’t pay to avoid obtaining without experiencing it.
A kind of freedom that is life-changing.
To know that everything really is going to be okay.
That I finally don’t have to do anything.
That there is still plenty pleasure out there to be experienced even as broken as we are.
That we can let go.
And honestly not take everything so seriously.
Especially when we have no real control.
I’m just a kid. God’s kid. And I can let Trinity be. Everything I’m not. That’s the only way.
All my problems didn’t get solved. But I found again the reason for staying in the game. Despite being well-aware that every last person can and probably will fail us at some point.
All is not lost. People are still worth it because most are still trying. They will fail. To be sure. But it’s worth it because most are still trying more than they’re not.
The miracle isn’t Jesus showing up physically. In a “rapture”. Or to quench all our hunger.
The miracle is that despite how bad it gets we are still showing up for each other. Even when we have almost nothing left.
That’s the narrative that I can live with.
That we are one body.
That’s why God doesn’t annihilate even child rapists. Because we are all one. We think healing means cutting off a part of ourselves. I think God sees differently, the opposite.
Humans amputate limbs when our knowledge fails. But God doesn’t amputate anyone eternally. The goal is always complete restoration. Absolute eventual rescue.
We are the 99 and God knows we’re fine. Enough. As and so Jesus goes to rescue and restore even the pedophiles. The Jeffrey Epsteins. The Harvey Weinsteins. Yep, even the Hitlers.
I hate that. Because of my pain and disgust.
But the good news is it’s not my job to do anything. I am allowed to be exactly me. I don’t have to save anyone. Especially not child rapists.
Or even myself.
But I think God let me go through all of this because I speak on Jesus, on the heart of Trinity. I prayed for this. I asked God to show me Their heart. Not specifically for pedophiles. But for me.
And yet in that conversation I heard the message undeniably clear: God isn’t frustrated. God isn’t worried. God isn’t impatient. God is merciful without end. Everything will be okay. Even when we are limited to seeing how.
That our pain matters. But we are the healthy ones compared to those that hurt children. That spiritual maturity means growing up to see that.
To at least acknowledge that if God wants to save EVERYONE then I can at least reduce my psychic and spiritual suffering by coming alongside Their heart.
Instead of my dogged insistence that everything and everyone painful be eliminated. That’s not how God works.
We only hate it because we can’t fully see how it all comes together in the end.
But if I can pray for Jello. And get markers that I didn’t even do anything to earn. If God cares about me so personally. Then maybe I can risk trusting Their heart for the bigger things. How it all will work out in the end.
That’s something tangible I can hold onto without having to bullshit myself with spiritual, mental, or emotional gymnastics.
That’s something real I can give to people who are hurting. Without causing additional damage. No surface level pleasantries to simply ease my comfort when I don’t know what else can be done.
No, the hope I have now actually preaches.
And I didn’t find it in strength. All the more, I found it in absolute weakness.
An eye can’t scratch itself. You were lied to: strength isn’t pathological independence. You were always meant to do Life in community. With others.
Even if only in passing like I seem to be relegated to for now.
Sarah Nyhan 