I wish I could say that day was the end…nicely tied up with a pretty bow on top: She was saved by her angels. Went to the hospital. The end…
But it really was only the beginning.
Once we arrived to the Vanderbilt ER, my 8 angels and I went inside where the hospital staff looked at us…confused.
“We’re here!” One of the angels said… “And she needs to get checked out!”
(We later laughed together because my angels really didn’t know what else to do but get me “help”).
The ER agreed to see me…although the doc was still pretty confused. No gun shot or heart attack had happened…so why was this little 23-year-old grad student in front of him?
In my mind, I thought, “Ha…I totally got this! Sweet of all these people to try to help me, but seriously, I am FIND…(and I’ll workout EXTRA HARD later since I missed my 3 hour morning routine)”…
15-minutes later, I came out of the exam room to my Angels…ready to leave and get back to my 1st class…
But they wouldn’t let me. (They’d called my parents by this time, & mom and dad were on their way to Nashville).
One pulled the ER doc aside, told him what was REALLY going on…and he came back to say: “Oh…I have another evaluation we need to do”…They held me another 4 hours, in a psych-eval room, where I met with a psych doc, and he decided he’d admit me (based on everyone else’s concern)…
So there I was. Trapped. Arriving to the 9th floor Psych Ward, I was greeted by 12 others who were “doing their time” (“in jail”), and the nurse took my belongings, and handed me this notebook: “Write”…
I did. For 48-hours straight, I wrote…and wrote…and wrote…Journaling my prayers up. “Why?! What?! WHERE ARE YOU?! What’s next?!”…And I read these words:
“After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire….And after the fire came a gentle whisper.”- 1 Kings 19:12-13
In the chaos of the storm and all the madness that had happened in my 13 years prior, God had to get me QUIET AND STILL for me to REALLY hear and listen…