By Chaplain Jimmy Hildebrandt
Written in Blood
Cold to the touch was the steel, the scent of blood in the air. My chin rested on the narrow, waist-high meal tray door, my only access to her. Back curved and neck straining, I peered low through the slot for a better view of Megan. She was sitting four feet away and was now deep in her second month of solitary confinement. 24/7 Suicide watch, they said.
Behind her, at the head of the raised concrete bed platform, was eerie, sloppy lettering on the concrete walls, like a child’s finger painting. But the words legible, written in blood red, and the message desperate: “I want to die! Let me die!”
Her arms – with fresh blood, new scabs, and raised scars – told the sad story of her hopelessness; she’s a cutter. “Feeling me bleeding comforts me,” she said. What an irony: solace in self-harm. Her arms told only part of her story. Every area of exposed skin and scalp was canvas to paint her story of powerlessness and despair. Cutting, bleeding, wiping, writing, ripping, and bleeding again. At least it’s a pain she can control.
During our long and sacred time together, we chatted, laughed, mourned, and at times, sat in silence, befuddled by life’s complexity and pain. Where words are concerned, less is more, and it seemed just sitting in the ditch, sighing together, felt like the best thing.
Broken Silence
All at once, after one of the many beautiful, awful, thick, silent moments, she paused and locked her sullen eyes on mine, with a painfully perplexed yet strangely hopeful grin, she asked, “Do you think God ever feels discouraged and lonely?”
Now, to be sure, I suppose there may be a better, more poignant question a hopeful seed Sower would delight in to hear, but I can’t think of one.
Immediately, the urgency to err on fewer words gave way to a gentle yet firm experience of the Spirit’s prodding, leading me to meet the gnarly question with the truth of God.
God…discouraged, lonely? she wonders. I wonder if the question is really: does God see me, know me, care about me? Does God know what it’s like to be hopeless and ruined, afraid and powerless? Does God care enough to help? Is He powerful enough to heal?
Words from Isaiah 53 rose up with strength, and Megan heard of a God who is in solidarity with sufferers and suffers for them and with them. For the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the Cross. Gently yet firmly, I shared with her about the One from Whom the Father turned His face so that His face may forever shine on us.
A Question for a Question
Does God ever feel discouraged or lonely? He can sympathize with us in our weakness. Yet He is also a God of hope, healing, grace, and forgiveness.
Her question was met with mine, “Is this suffering Savior compelling to you? Would you like to know and trust Him? Would you like to be healed?”
With a bright, hopeful smile and a slight bounce off the hard, concrete pad, she responded, “Yes, I want this Jesus!”
After months of confinement, Megan was freed from solitary confinement and rescued from sin, now twice free to be a slave to the Son.