God in the Psych Ward

“Lord Jesus,” I prayed. “If you heal me, I will preach your Gospel for the rest of my life.” I’m not proud of this prayer. It was a desperate and ragged prayer. I was bargaining with God. I was terrified and wanted out of that situation. I wanted God to swoop down and heal my brain and make everything ok again. As a friend later reminded me, Jesus commands us to preach the Gospel anyway—whether or not we are healed from our illnesses. But there I was, bargaining with God and promising to do things He had already told me to do. At the time, it felt like I was making a huge, profound promise to God. Despite this not being a perfect prayer, God still answered it. But not in the way I expected. For one thing, He didn’t heal me. I still have bipolar and, unless He decides to heal me at some future point, I will have bipolar for the rest of my life. And I didn’t get out of going to the psychiatric ward. I still had to go through that experience. I still had to experience the indignities of being locked in and dealing with Dr. Moustache. God didn’t save me from these experiences but what did happen was that I began to experience the warm, comforting presence of His love. As I lay on that hospital gurney there was a deep and quiet awareness that God was with me. I was not alone.