Sarah Nyhan

A continuation of my attempt to finish a book I started in December 2017. Posting chapters in an attempt to organize it all and finish.

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I didn’t have anymore strength. I was in the space of completely giving up. I tried playing the “good girl” part for a long time. I gave 150% and everything still fell apart and got worse instead of better. I had given my all and my all wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. I must have done something wrong. If everything depended on me then I had no hope. Injustice appeared to be on parade while I was reeling alone in pain after my world had been blown to smithereens. I was so angry at God! I felt like He let me go or even led me into a place that shattered my heart, my trust, and my faith. I felt abandoned. In my mind I knew God is only good, but there are times where intellectual knowing is not enough.

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I left Manna House in October 2014 and I was waiting for December 19th, 2014. At some point in between those dates, I was homeless and went to Live Oak Park to try to calm my thinking.

Iwas sitting in my car and staring out at a lake. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to go. If I knew, I wouldn’t even have had the strength to follow through.

I saw a lady walk by on a trail in front of me. A thought comes to my mind: “You need to talk to her. She has something you need to hear.”

My response: “NO! I can’t today! You know in the past I would have done any crazy thing such as approaching a complete stranger just because I thought You said to. But I can’t today! I can’t! I don’t know if I’ve ever heard You! I don’t know if these thoughts are me, You, the devil, or if I’m losing my mind! I’m sorry, I can’t today! I don’t have enough faith today.”

Silence.

The lady continues to walk down the path, around the corner, and out of sight. I continue sitting in my car and staring out at the lake.

Am I going to hell? Have I lost my salvation? I bet I did it this time. You know, blaspheming The Holy Spirit and all. Trading my eternal future for a moment of worldy relief. Terror grips my heart. I spiral further down. I’m paralyzed.

Silence.

The day is eerily still. The park is unusually quiet and without activity. It’s one of those days where even the air is still.

I see the same lady return and walk back on the path in front of me. Again the thought: “You need to talk to her. She has something you need to hear.”

“No! I’m sorry; You know I would any other day before, but I can’t now. I can’t today.”

I sit inside myself like an angry child. Arms crossed. Face turned away.

Silence.

How can I trust God? I was so sure before and then everything fell apart. I tried so much. I wasn’t perfect, but…

Who has a chance? How can anyone ever measure up? I can’t figure out what went wrong. I can’t figure out the future.

Silence.

The sun dances on the calm blue lake in the distance. I see beautiful white swans swimming towards the shore. If I’m going to hell then what’s the harm in capturing a beautiful photo of swans along the way?

I drag myself out of my car and walk down to the water. To my surprise, the swans come closer to me instead of swimming away. The four swans line up perfectly and linger long enough that I am able to get an amazing shot. I’m blown away; they are so beautiful!

Meanwhile behind me and around me a group of ducks gather close to me.

I can feel my heart but I don’t want to. I’m scared of my heart. I want to pack it away. I wish my mind would cooperate and stay in control.

As I think that thought, it’s as if suddenly the warmth and color are completely drained from the entire scene and the swans suddenly appear cold and ugly. They swim off and the little ducks also leave me.

I’ve done it again; I always mess everything up. There is no hope. If only I wouldn’t be so lazy. If only I would try harder. If only I’d quit being so selfish and ungrateful. And know my place.

Silence.

I suddenly notice a sort of peninsula to my right. The skinniest little path of land extending out into the lake. It looks like a good place to go to be depressed about how I’ve ruined everything and my life is over. I start shuffling over to that direction.

I meander around a corner full of foliage. As I lift my gaze from the ground, there she is sitting at a different table under the shade of a big tree. I avert my gaze.

“You know you need to talk to her. She has something to say.”

“NO!”

I’m angry! I already said no!

“I don’t even know if you are my thoughts, or the devil, or me. I CAN’T!”

As I hurriedly walk away, the lady calls out to me, “Nice day, eh?”

I am NOT doing THIS! I gave her my coldest, most aloof “uh huh” and looked ahead while I kept walking past her all the way down the path to the very end of the skinny peninsula.

Water surrounded me on three sides. There was only room enough for a picnic table. I sat down and stared out at the lake.

Silence.

Emptiness.

Look at my life – what am I supposed to do now? Where am I supposed to go from here? Is there any point?

Silence.

Heaviness.

Then like a shock in my thoughts, the loudest sound in the middle of everything: “You know you need to talk to her.”

My fury welled up: “NO!!! NO! NO! NO! I CAN’T!! IF YOU ARE SO BIG, IF YOU ARE SO REAL, YOU CAN BRING HER DOWN HERE TO ME!!!”

I think I may have even folded my arms, stuck out my bottom lip, and stomped my feet on the ground. I certainly felt like it.

A moment or two.

And then… I just knew. I turned from looking at the lake and looked back down the path towards the tree…

Yep, sure enough, HERE SHE COMES WALKING TOWARDS ME!!!

In the most literally sense: Oh My GOD!!

This is really happening!

This is a big park. I couldn’t see anyone else around. I’m on the skinniest little peninsula. All by myself. I made it abundantly clear that I was not interested in communicating. I obviously want to be alone. AND HERE SHE COMES!

I guess we are doing THIS.

It’s like all the life was coming back into the scene. Alive; alive is what it felt like. I was almost shaking inside.

She walks directly towards me without stopping. She sits down directly in front me, faces me, and says, “Hi.”

Hi?! Just, hi!? I’m laughing inside at this point.

But I still don’t want to do THIS. I’m not ready. I can’t. I’m not going to let my stupid emotions get the best of me again. I’m not going to get tricked. I’m not going to read too much into this.

So I take control. I come back at her like a machine gun, like an investigative reporter asking her question after question. All small talk. We’re not going to do THIS! I don’t want her here. If she is going to invade my space then she is only going to get so far.

She humors me for a few minutes. Then she interrupts me: “What I really came here to say was if you died tonight, do you think you’d go to heaven?”

It was like the world stopped turning and it was only she and I on the planet. Whoa, ok God, we are doing THIS.

I deflate and irreverently respond, “I don’t know, I think so.”

“Well, what are you going to say when you are standing in front of Him?”

“I’ll tell Him I have nothing to offer. I can only get in through Jesus.” Empty pockets, open hands.

She looked like that wasn’t the answer she was expecting. She looked confused. I felt bad. Maybe she needed to say something more. So I follow up with: “Well, what would you have said if I told you ‘no’?”

She proceeds to tell me her version of the gospel message. I don’t even remember her words. But this feeling just started washing over me. Tears started streaming out of my eyes, down my cheeks, and onto my shirt. Tears and tears and tears! A nonstop stream of tears. But she didn’t miss a beat or acknowledge them. She kept talking as a wave washed through me and carried me away.

She finished telling me her gospel message by saying something like, “So do you want to pray with me to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?”

Me – the one who just left full-time “ministry”, me – the one who had been preaching to people for years, me – the one who can be the most legalistic of a bunch, flippantly replies, “Yeah sure, ok.” Fire insurance. For the four hundredth time. And she proceeds to lead me through a prayer.

After praying we chat about some things for a minute or two. We then exchange numbers, but the mood has changed. Suddenly she’s not my spiritual Tinkerbell. Suddenly she is just a lady, just another person at the park. Kind of detached.

She begins to leave but turns back around to me after a few steps and says, “I was on my way home, leaving the park. I was on that path and I saw a snake laying across the path. So I turned around and came back.”

Then she turns back around and walks off. I’m left there by myself at the picnic table at the end of the peninsula.

What just happened? Did I just now get “saved”?

“No. You just needed to be reminded of how simple it is.”

We can’t mess it up.

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I had that incredible experience at Live Oak Park. The lady invited me to her church. And that’s where I was headed on the night that changed my life.

I believe it was a Wednesday. Her church was on the south side. I was headed I think down Interstate 35 or Loop 410. Already at least by Rittiman Road. And it was like a gong going off in my head with God giving me the same thought over and over again: turn around and go to service at Calvary Chapel San Antonio.

But that didn’t make any sense to me. I had only recently left Manna House – so there was bad blood about that. And I was not trusting many in leadership – and they knew it. So why would I go back? It didn’t make “sense”.

But it was like the thought kept screaming at me. And it was so loud that it was the only thought getting through any moment I wasn’t actively resisting it.
I remember feeling so angry and so frustrated! Why would God ask me to go back and listen to that preacher?!

But it felt like nothing else was going to happen for me until and unless I did what kept coming to mind.

So in much anger, I turned the car around and headed back towards Calvary Chapel San Antonio. I started crying so much as I was driving! Tears of anger, frustration, and sadness. Crying a lot the whole way. I was so mad. This didn’t make any sense!

In better times, I always sat in the front row next to Paula. But that Wednesday night I arrived after the service started. So I snuck in as quietly as possible and sat at the first open seat I saw – which ended up being on your row. A seat or two away from you. But I didn’t think anything of it at the time. You still weren’t on my radar.

And I sat through the whole service. Nothing. I was so mad at God! “Why did You turn me around and send me back here?! I didn’t get anything out of the talk tonight. Nothing was speaking to me.”

It was then, my dear Jonathan, that you made the “mistake” of asking me how I was doing. Or something to that effect.

I laugh about it now. You probably had no idea the fully loaded locomotive you were stepping in front of when you asked me how I was doing. Did you really want to know or was it just small talk?

Either way, you got me at the “right” time – at a height of my frustration. Thinking I heard and followed God to nothing. Yet again. After so many disappointments.

I don’t remember what I specifically answered back to you, but it was something to that effect. Expressing my frustration and disappointment. Indicating that I felt like I failed. Informing you that I was no longer at Manna House.

In typical Dr. Jonathan fashion, you were not phased in the least by my emotions. And you proceeded to come at me from a whole different angle.

It would have been incredibly insulting if Spirit wasn’t in it. But given everything, it made me laugh out loud. Burst my bubble just enough to snap me out of the mental loop I was stuck in. Because you said something to the effect of, “Sometimes we think we’re more important or needed than we actually are”.

In other words, God’s got this – God’s got all these people and things I was worried about. That’s the nice way of putting it. Basically, chill out.

That answer was completely unexpected. Not at all what I anticipated hearing that night. So you had my ear. And I listened as you elaborated. I remember one thing really stuck out to me – you talked to me about Moses.

Basically you told me that Moses initially was trying to do things in his own strength. And so God said, “Whoa, Moses – let me take you out into the desert and teach you My love for My sheep.”

And then you told me about God coming back to Moses in his old age, past what appeared to be Moses’ prime. And telling Moses, “Ok, now I’m ready for you, Moses.”

And Moses turned Him down. Still relying on his own strength, instead of God’s.

And then you told me the kicker – God wasn’t mad AT Moses. No, God was mad FOR Moses! God knew how much He had prepared for Moses. And God wanted Moses to be the one, the right-hand man, to get the joy and honor of that place of participation.

When you said that, it rocked my world and gave me hope. That God wasn’t finished with me. That I hadn’t screwed up too much. That God would come back for me. That this wasn’t the end. That it was just the start of the next, a new, chapter.

Then I understood why God brought me back to Calvary Chapel San Antonio that night. It wasn’t for the “sermon” I heard from the pulpit. It was to talk with you and hear your words. To my heart.

Unbeknownst to either of us.

My first hope. During a very bleak time.