Alive Now Extended

by Sudha Khristmukti

The knock on my door was persistent. When I opened it, a tired, thin, gaunt-faced young woman with disheveled hair and a defiant scowl stared at me. She seemed to be in her early twenties. Beside her stood Mary, an old acquaintance I hadn’t seen in sixteen years.

After they settled on the sofa, Mary said she had searched me out. The young woman, who sat passively and stared at her toes, was her sister Tina. Mary told me that Tina had tried to take her own life a few days earlier. She had survived but now spoke to no one and refused to eat.

Mary left after an hour without further explanation. I assumed she would come back a few hours later to take Tina home. I had no idea she would never return.

There was no extra room in my house, so I settled Tina on a folding bed in my room. She lay on the bed day after day, not speaking, barely moving, staring at the ceiling with dead, vacant eyes. It took repeated coaxing on my part for her to take at least some fruit juice, which she reluctantly sipped. The icy walls she had built around herself were impenetrable. She urgently and desperately needed nourishment, but eating was far from her mind. Her stony silence and angry brow betrayed hate and loathing that she kept to herself. Deep rejection, hopelessness, heavy despair had enveloped her completely.

I was too stunned and perplexed to think. In my town there were no crisis centers, suicide intervention programs, women’s shelters, AA groups, or psychiatrists. My days were filled with travel, work, and chores. What was I to do with this total stranger I’d never seen or met, and whose own family obviously no longer wanted her? How was I to reach someone too deeply wounded to care whether anyone cared at all? All I could think to do was to pray.

Three months passed. Then suddenly she dared to bare the pieces of her shattered self.

“I wish I’d never been born. . . ,” she declared chokingly. She felt unwanted by her father, who was frustrated and disappointed he didn’t have a son. A hate-filled, abusive man, he constantly cursed and physically abused her. To escape his perpetual wrath, she often ran away from home, and got involved with drugs and became an alcoholic. She couldn’t quit and she didn’t care.

As Tina grew stronger her bitter rage returned. From time to time she would run off. Each time I’d pray that the Lord would guide her steps back home. Each time, I’d welcome her back.

One evening she left a note on my work-desk saying she couldn’t live anymore and had no strength to try. Once more, I knelt in desperate prayer. She returned after forty-eight agonizing hours, her clothes caked with mud. She told me she had walked endlessly into the dark night and come to a huge reservoir near a field. She had planned to drown herself but somehow couldn’t. Thanking God, I trembled from relief.

I tried again and again to convince Tina to see a psychologist in a city. After several weeks she agreed. I drove her seventy kilometers on my scooter and back again, three times a week. Initially she refused to answer a single question. Only after many appointments, she slowly began talking during sessions. But just when things seemed to be progressing, she suddenly refused to go back.

One afternoon she stood in the middle of the kitchen with a kerosene-drenched T-shirt and a matchbox in her hand and tried to set herself on fire. I begged God desperately to help me stop her. I somehow wrenched the matchbox away and pushed her out into the backyard. She was violent toward me and cursed loudly: “Why don’t you let me die you fool? Its my life.” Finally she calmed down and burst into great sobs, collapsing to the ground. I rushed her to be hospitalized for a few days.

Again, with great dread, I prepared to take her home. I had been badly shaken and shocked at these events. It seemed as if nothing could touch this frozen, hard, unreachable heart. My mother and I continued praying for her, over her, with her.

Then one night I was reading aloud my favorite psalm, Psalm 91: “You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust’” (verses 1-2).

I realized Tina was actually listening. Intently. To my utter surprise, she asked me to read it out again. I also read her Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” She didn’t say a word, but I knew she was thinking, and thinking seriously.

Could she be even meditating upon that great verse? She had told me she had been an atheist who’d never known or needed or heeded God.  Over time, she began expressing an interest in this God my mother and I so much believed in.

One day she argued: “There is no God. And even if there is, He doesn’t care. Not about me anyway.”

I replied, “He cared enough to bring you to my door. Did I not care? Did I turn you away?”

“Why did YOU care?” she questioned.

“Because Jesus does, don’t you see?” I calmly stated.

She was silent for a long time.

And then the torrent of tears came. She didn’t hold them back. It was nearly dawn when I held her hand and asked the Lord to take control of her spirit, her mind, and her body. For once, she bowed her head with me in prayer, in total surrender to a God she thought had never existed.

A healing process began. Very, very slowly. She ate and slept well. She fought long and hard with her addictions, and, after more than a year of intense struggle, she triumphed over the alcohol and the drugs.

Over the next two years Tina came and went. She would talk about the difference Jesus was making in her life and how tough it was trying to cope with a new lifestyle. The promise of Psalm 121:3 inspired her. “He will not let your foot slip – he who watches over you will not slumber.” She said she held onto it for dear life! Psalm 91, however, had the deepest effect over her spirit. She read it every night and each time she felt weak and vulnerable, and tempted to fall.

Another year later, she finally started working steadily. In the past she had never been able to hold a job for long.

Helping Tina made me rely heavily on God’s love, wisdom, and guidance in coping with what was an impossible-to-tackle task. I had never looked after anyone in that way. It was only by God’s absolute grace that I was able to keep supporting and encouraging this angry, broken person, as days turned to weeks, weeks to months, until more than a year had gone by. How hard it was for me to give of my time, help, understanding and listening ears to just one person! How finite and limited too, is human presence! But God is available for all everyone across the world, anytime, anywhere, always. I realize more than ever that our God never sleeps.

Read Romans 12:1-8

1. What challenge has Paul called us to in this passage? How is Romans 12:6-8 related to 12:1? How does this call relate to Veronica Badowski’s article “Love and Sacrifice” (page 15)? Where do you see a similar challenge in your own life?

2. In what ways have you been called to make a sacrifice to God like Veronica did? What obstacles do you face in submitting yourself to God’s will?

3. How can we learn to trust God’s call to us and willingly follow his call?

Read Carl P. Daw’s article “Till All the Jails Are Empty” (page 26).

1. Consider the current controversies in the news: Healthcare reform; U.S. military presence in Afghanistan; standards for K-12 students; restructuring student loans; floods in the Southeast; wild fires in the West. Poverty, homelessness, and job loss continue to be issues. Where is God calling you in the midst of this?

2. With the concerns of the previous question in mind, do you think these are the questions Carl is addressing? Is there somewhere else to begin?

3. Where have you done God’s work?

Read Marie LeClerc Laux’s poem, “Mystery” (page 31).

1. Who are the “They” she refers to in your own life?

2. Read and Meditate on Matthew 5:6

Read Sudha Khristmukti’s poem, “More Than Enough” (page 47).

1. Where do you find your gifts?

2. Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-26. In what ways is this explanation a challenge to us? In what ways is it a comfort?