Note: The story contained in this article is factual, but the names wherein are fictitious to maintain the anonymity of the now 18-year-old girls represented in the telling of their story (told with their permission). The images came from Google and are not the young ladies in this story.
By Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project
It’s often said that no one can know for certain that God exists, and if he does, that Jesus is God’s son who died for the sin of all people and arose from the dead; especially after three days in the grave. How is that possible?
Cells in the brain typically start dying after some four minutes or more. By the 7-10 minute mark, even if there is still brain function, the person whose heart has stopped for that long will likely never be the same. Yet, you can “google” stories of people coming back 20, 30, 45, and in at least one documented case, of someone who was dead for 90 minutes before waking up. These people were not sleeping. They died. Then they came back to life. Search online. Look it up. These people should not be able to breathe on their own, and should certainly never walk or talk again. Yet, they can tell you they are, tell you who you are, tell you where you are, what day it is, and so on. Their brain was revived to fully function; maybe better than ever. How is that possible?
If God didn’t always exist, what did? And, if God does exist and originated life from nothing else besides what God has made, then anything and everything is indeed possible, including resurrection, whether someone was dead for 30 minutes, or three days.
Do you know when else you can know that God is real and Jesus is alive? When he shows up, especially at just the right time. It’s sort of like not believing that Santa Claus is real until he lands on your roof and touches your life, and makes it better. Once the evidence of God provides the substance you need to support your hope in the possibility that God is real and Jesus is alive, it changes everything, and there’s no turning back. It doesn’t matter what anyone says to challenge or marginalize the experience; it happened in way that is so profound, it affects—impacts—you to the very core of your being. You’re never the same.
This is an experience I will always remember. It just so happens it occurred on the day of remembrance, Memorial Day, 2019.
I am about to tell you a story of an extraordinary divine encounter with the presence of God. I suppose you would have to have been there to most fully appreciate it. The story involves two teenage women in the behavioral health division of a Chicago-area hospital. It’s a story that when you read it, you might feel that the details have been embellished somewhat to give it some added dramatic punch. But once you have read it, believe this. There are not words to adequately enough convey the awesome power of Jesus Christ in the moment that this happened.
I will begin with an introduction.
I work mostly with teenagers who struggle mightily with mental illness. Most of these young people come into the hospital with ideas about suicide, and many have attempted suicide. Some have taken a lethal combination of drugs that are usually legal since they have been prescribed to them. Others have attempted to hang themselves, slice into something on their bodies, jump from a building or bridge, step into traffic, or drive fast into an unmovable object. On one occasion, I once worked with an adolescent boy who attempted to shoot himself in the head with a firearm.
In every case, obviously the kids I’ve worked with survived the attempt. What is not so obvious is that in almost every case, the person changed his or her mind, finding more reason and motivation to live than to die. Their circumstances hadn’t improved much if at all, but surviving a lethal suicide attempt came with a sudden change in perspective. The context of how to manage a crisis, including how to handle overwhelming stress, deal with a history involving trauma, and managing mental illness had adjusted in a big way. The brain experiences a phenomenal surge within the fight or flight mechanism, and the subsequent immediate panic leads to the need to survive in the moment.
Over the years, I’ve counseled both adults and youth who panicked in the midst of bleeding out and called out for help or dialed 9-1-1. I’ve worked with individuals who stopped breathing, flatlined on the table, and were revived after ingesting lethal narcotic drugs.
I worked with a teenage girl not long ago who battled posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to a history of sexual abuse and other mental health symptoms (audio and visual hallucinations) who hung herself thinking she was alone in the house (mom had stepped out for some milk or something). It turned out her little brother heard his sister kicking and screaming, found her, and held her up the best he could until the paramedics arrived. I recently worked with an adolescent boy who survived jumping forty feet from a bridge (overpass) and survived despite severe injuries.
And then there was the teenage boy who attempted to shoot himself in the head. The gun jammed the first time he pulled the trigger, and then having pulled the trigger a second time, the bullet exploded inside the hammer of the gun. He heard the gun fire, but nothing came out.
Like I said, in just about every case (at least dozens of them), these people who should have died (considering the lethality of their attempt) changed their minds. Often times, there was a spiritual component, even though the person was not altogether spiritual in their life experiences. And if religious at all, many came to oppose religion, usually having to do with bad people experiences. But straddling the threshold between life and death, at the edge of their mortality, something happened to them. They don’t typically speak of an encounter with God, but do tend to report a tremendous fear of the unknown on the other side of the curtain, so to speak. Even if they didn’t have what they understood to be some kind of spiritual experience, they do often understand it to be some more than anything they had ever known or considered before.
Though the environment I work in is typically secular, like that of most therapeutic settings for professionals in the field, I work for a hospital affiliated with a Catholic entity, and have some freedom to “go there” with patients, so long as I don’t impose onto them my values pertaining to faith and what not. But since their encounter with death has them leaning toward something beyond them, having experienced a sudden sense (fear) of the unknown, I get to help them explore that some more, and perhaps they will discover something amazing, beyond what they ever thought possible.
I would now like to share with a story of a couple of seventeen-year-old girls who are now both eighteen and have authorized me to share it. They want it told. It’s a pretty incredible story.
“When I wrestled with God, he brought me to that same place of weakness. This weakness didn’t leave me more vulnerable before my enemies, real or imagined. Instead, it taught me that, even though we all walk with unsteady feet, we can rely on the God who reveals himself directly to us, a God unmasked, a God who lets us grab hold of him in the darkness. In these times of wrestling, we might find ourselves transformed.” —Alie Joy, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, author, God Saved Me from Suicide
The Unusual Case of an Encounter with God that Changes Everything
This is one of those stories where you just don’t really know how the sudden reach and power of the immediate presence of God in a singular moment in time is going to translate in print. God did a beautiful thing for two people (three if you include what it did for me) who really needed God to show up in a big way, at some point in their time of need. And show up in a big way, God did.
How is it that the God of this vast universe, with billions of people on this planet, found his way to pay attention to a couple of struggling souls just in the nick of time?
O Lord, what are human beings that you should notice them, mere mortals that you should think about them? Psalm 144:3 (NLT)
Names are tricky thing when trying to minimize exposure for the young women in this story. While I have their permission to tell it, it is still with respect to maintaining their anonymity. Therefore, I am applying names to these now 18-year-olds that are familiar enough, but not necessarily all that common. I chose two flowers (also colors), Violet and Rose.
Violet was someone struggling to find her own voice, enduring one of the most difficult challenges of her young life. She was deeply discouraged and bewildered, desperately seeking clarity. She found herself so lost in her pain and struggle that she required professional help.
Having already spent significant time in a hospital psychiatric ward, Violet was heavily medicated and spending most of the time in her room, living in her head through every dark experience of her life as it replayed in her mind. As the memories of real-life experiences were recalled into something not so real, they seemed to culminate into some form of a delusional reality beyond Violet’s reach. Reality had gotten away from her. Real-life trauma was twisted into something even more acute, feeding into a psychosis that must have been her torment.
At the same time, another seventeen-year-old girl in treatment, who I’ll call Rose, was struggling with thoughts of suicide from a brooding sense of hopelessness that sank into much deeper despair. She struggled with the fear of the unknown in her life as she prepared for life after high school, having already graduated. Rose was already enrolled in college.
Rose would tell you, though, that while she had quite a bit of anxiety about leaving her family and her boyfriend for college, that it really wasn’t the reason for feeling suicidal. She would tell you that her life was good. No complaints, really. She didn’t exactly know why, or understand, where this sense of darkness was coming from. She suspected that perhaps it was something not right in her head; that her brain was not running on all cylinders. Rose knew she needed help.
Rose loves animals and hopes to care for them as a veterinarian. But she would have to clear this hurdle of frequent suicidal ideation that had become an arduous hardship. She couldn’t seem to shake it. As she prepared to embark on this next phase in her life, the stress and the anxiety emanating from within felt insurmountable and could sabotage her plans, and perhaps terminate them if she were to take her life.
Already battling confounding elements of psychosis, Violet, on the other hand, was having a particularly troubling time this day. Violet was also in a fight for her life. There seemed to be something tormenting her from within that was being expressed verbally by way of some kind of psychotic rant as she sat in her room, no more than fifteen feet or so from where I was having my conversation with Rose.
Violet apparently couldn’t help herself as she began belting out loud from her lips some of the horrific experiences she recalled from her past. At one point, she made a reference to a demon wreaking havoc against her soul. She was heard yelling out from her room frightening threats of violence against at least one person. It may have been related to a memory of someone who had hurt her. It’s also possible she was in the throes of some form of delusion triggered by psychotic symptoms. Violet’s rant was persistent and continued for some time.
Rose, though she was preparing for discharge from the hospital in the next day or two, continued to express having what is referred to as passive suicidal ideation, without active intention or plan to do anything about it. I asked her what would happen to her if she indeed took her own life. How would suicide be of benefit to her? You see, the question is asked because if suicide has no intended benefit, then why go there? My intention is to help people, regardless of age, to see for themselves that there has to be a better way to manage even overwhelming stress than an action that does not have any benefit other than pain and regret. So, why not take suicide off the table as an option for coping?
So again, the question to Rose has to do with the perceived benefit of ending one’s life?
Rose responded that she would be set free of the anguish that comes from the sensation something bad is bound to happen; that there is this dark cloud hanging over her. It’s as though she can hear thunder rumbling, gets rained on from time to time, but so far has not been affected by the lightening that can kill her with a single strike. To be free of this ordeal was necessary for her, and suicide could get it done. She understands that the notion of suicide is irrational. She doesn’t to hurt her loved ones. She recognizes that the devastating effect on their lives would be irreparable. Still, it lingers.
When asked how she knows she’d be free, Rose said, with a degree of certainty, that she would go to heaven.
I had to ask, “How can you be certain you would go to heaven? What is heaven? Where is heaven? How can you know that heaven is even a real thing or place? How can you know? How do you know that heaven is myth? What do you believe about what happens when you die that you can know you would go to heaven, whatever it is?”
My intention in trying to goad Rose into doubting what she believes about heaven was to make it harder for her to consider suicide as the route to get her there. I, of course, want very much for her to be free of this pain emanating from her brain, but not like that.
Rose struggled to answer my questions. She was struck by the question and began stammer over her own words. I knew how she might know, but she was not able to articulate at all her response to my questions. Her responses were hardly coherent, as though she was babbling on about it. This went on for a minute or so, as we continued to hear Violet rant from her room. Then, Rose told me that she just knew but that she didn’t have the words to express what she believed about it.
In the midst of her somewhat “demonic” sounding rant from her room, Violet stopped talking for just a couple of seconds. Violet’s voice then became crystal clear as she called out, in the midst of Rose’s struggle to express what she believed about why she would go to heaven,
“I believe in Jesus… I believe in God!”
What? What just happened?
Rose stood there in disbelief as these words came from the lips of Violet. There was a handful of seconds when Violet said nothing, and then right went back into her random psychotic (to say the least) rants of threats of vengeance.
As her eyes began to immediately well up with tears, I asked Rose if that was the answer to my questions. Rose responded that it was. She stood there before me in tears telling me, “I’ve wondered what a sign from God would be like.” She could not have imagined that the Jesus she then told she believed in since she was a child, would ever (actually) speak to her like that.
O Lord, what are human beings that you should notice them, mere mortals that you should think about them? For they are like a breath of air; their days are like a passing shadow. Open the heavens, Lord, and come down… Reach down from heaven and rescue me; rescue me from deep waters, from the power of my enemies. Psalms 144:3-4, 7 (NLT)
Just after hearing from God, having received this clear sign from God that she is meant to live, I told Rose of this saying by David in Psalm 144. David was a struggling leader who wondered how God would see through the stars in the heavens and find him. With all that is going on in the universe and on the earth, why would God notice? Why would he care to notice? I told her that the universe is massive, and so is the billions of people on planet earth in our time. Yet, God noticed Rose’s pain and found her. He spoke to her in way that was undeniable. Why would he do that? What’s the point? What is God’s intention and purpose for her?
Rose would go on to discover that God had a purpose for her life. She is an animal lover with dogs she finds great joy in loving and caring for. She is going to school to learn how to be a doctor to pets that bring joy into the families of their owners. The children who look to their pets to love them unconditionally without criticism or judgment, will be grateful to Rose for whatever she is able to do in the healing process of their beloved pets. What an opportunity she has to send these animals home to their families to be a source of joy for them. Rose appeared to really get that as the tears continued leaking from both eyes.
When her parents visited that afternoon, Rose asked me to help her to tell the story of what occurred just a couple of hours earlier. Her mother, a believer, lifted her arm pointing to the hairs standing up. Rose would ask me to share the story with her peers in group the next morning. When I asked her if I can write about it and tell it to others, she told me, “Tell it to everyone.” So, I am.
Rose discharged from the hospital the next afternoon. (Ethical standards prohibit me from having any further contact with her.) She is loved and supported by family and friends. So, I am confident that she is cared for and in good hands. And if God noticed and paid her the attention he did when she needed it most, then you know she is in his hands, today.
Patients come and go. I remember their faces should they return but don’t always remember their names. I told Rose that I will never forget her; that I will always remember her name. You see, I was there. So, it happened to me, too. It’s an undeniable, unforgettable experience in my relationship with Jesus. I heard God speak to his child in a clear voice that was unmistakably his. Wow!
What a demonstration of God’s power, to cut through the misery of these two girls to speak life into both of them. They both have a story to tell. What a beautiful story of divine revelation and inspiration it is. I hope and pray it has God’s intended effect for them for the rest of their lives.
So, what of Violet? What happened to her?
Over the next couple of weeks, Violet’s condition improved a great deal. With the support of medicine and therapy, and no doubt the hand of God on her life (more specifically, her brain), she got better. When she’s better, Violet is one of the sweetest people you’d ever want to meet.
I asked her if I could tell her a story. I told her about a time when this girl, who Violet knew, really needed to hear from God. I told her the story of how God, the King of the universe, used her voice while she was in the midst of one of the most challenging times of her life. I told the story of how God spoke through her to touch the heart and soul of Rose, also going through one of the most challenging times of her life. I shared with Violet of how God paid such special attention to two of his children that he loves that will change both of them forever.
Violet wept. I mean she wept. A nurse came over to ask her if she was okay. I asked Violet in front of the nurse, what kind of tears are those. Adele answered, “Happy tears.” She believes. Because she believes, she does not doubt that Jesus Christ is alive and did this to through her. Violet believes in Jesus. She believes in God. Her words were her testimony. How could she contain her tears knowing that God would use her voice like that?
Through this experience, as this story was told to Violet, she was touched deeply into her soul, helping to resurrect her from her place of darkness and dread into the light of a new day. Violet is alive and woken into opportunity to experience the joy and peace of her king, Jesus, as she celebrates her life with those she loves.
Violet asked me to write this story for her. And now I’ve written it for you.
Since that time, I had the opportunity to share this story with an adolescent male patient who struggles big time with PTSD, depression, suicidal ideation, and drug abuse to self-medicate. When he informed me that he was not necessarily atheist, but didn’t know about or have anything to go on to believe in God or consider faith. He was not particularly interested, though, in religion.
So, I shared with him the story of these two young ladies that I just shared with you. This teenage boy I was telling the story to I have known from previous stays in our program, so he knew me to be a grounded sorta guy that doesn’t live on the fringe, so to speak. He knows me to be real and down to earth; not someone who would buy into some religious hoax. So, when I tell him something I believe in, he will consider that perhaps it’s something he should think about. He trusts me.
Of course after telling him the story, I told of how the girl in the story told me, “Tell everyone.”
I went on to talk about who Jesus was and is. I told him that history typically agrees with the evidence that Jesus indeed lived, and then died as a martyr. I told him about the Flavius Josephus (typically considered to be an outsider that did not consider himself to be a follower of Jesus) historical accounts that back up what the Bible claimed was an empty, and the witnesses and followers of Jesus that went from fearing for their lives believing he was dead, to be willing to risk their livelihood, and even be martyred, for the sake of telling everyone that Jesus is alive, and how their lives had been impacted by their experience with the risen Christ.
I told him a great deal more about why Jesus was the only sacrifice for our mistakes and selfishness as ambitiously prideful human beings. I told him about an experience or two that I’d had that for me was undoubtedly the work of the risen Jesus in my life. I told him of how it’s not through religion but in relationship with God by way of his son, Jesus that he could experience the same kind of healing and deliverance the two girls in the story did.
What impressed this guy more than anything was this: He said something to the extent of, “The disciples and followers of Jesus did the same thing that girl in the story said to do. Tell everyone.” He understood that a story worth telling needs to be told to everyone that will listen.
If you have experienced the touch of God on your life, heard his voice, or have seen Jesus in some way, I hope that you will share your story. Tell everyone.
It really is humbling to have a part in these experiences. To play a role in the healing process for these young people is an honor and a privilege. I take nothing about it for granted. I get to do this. There are so many more stories that came to mind while writing this one. Anyway, I hope it touched you in some way. Feel free to pass it along if you think it can help someone in their hour of need.
Blessings to you.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)
Wow, very powerful! Praise God and thanks for sharing!