Life after Death.

 It is an honor to introduce you to today’s guest writer, Tiffana. Pretty certain you will be moved by her story.  Two years ago, this very month her life was on the line. Today she stands tall, beautiful, restored, redeemed and radiating. Her life has been transformed. Thank you Tiffana, for the courage you’ve shown in sharing your story with us.

I can remember it as if it was yesterday. I slowly woke up to the sound of footsteps pacing through the halls. I could barely make out the silhouettes of the shadows reflecting off the starch white wall. She tapped me on my foot with her blue pen and said, “Time for vitals.”  My head was pounding – throbbing – and my body aching. Vitals? I have vitals? This meant I was alive. Suddenly, the reality of my failure had hit me as the shame of my condition slowly settled in.

Vitals mean I am alive – I had not overcome the darkness.

Suicide. It is a tricky thing.  For once in my life I felt like I had ultimate control, that no more, not one instance longer, would I be at the mercy of another individual, or at the mercy of my agonizing depression. I could face my very own darkness head on and slip away into eternity forever. What relief that would be. I no longer had the courage to face the unbearable pain I had endured for so long. In this moment – in my most daring moment of vulnerability and honesty – I had lost the very thing I thought I was regaining – rights to my own body.

I felt like a criminal.

I wasn’t allowed to bathe alone, eat alone, or sleep alone. I had to be watched, because I was no longer safe to myself. I was humiliated amidst the greatest pain I had ever endured.

The reality settled in. Vitals? Vitals mean I am alive.

I lifted my head and the smell overtook me. The cold air whispered out of the eerily clean vent above my head, and the aroma of the sterile hospital forced its way through my nostrils. I dug my head back into the bare mattress, for I had even lost the dignity to have a pillow to lay my head on, or a set of sheets to crawl into for comfort. In defeat, I mumbled through the sounds of heart monitors:

“My vitals are fine, I am breathing – what more do you want?”

Shivers radiated through my spine as her cold bare hands landed on the arch of my back.  “You have to get up, it’s time for vitals.”   If you would have told me this hospital would be my cure for cancer, I would have gladly stayed – but since you told me this hospital was my cure for mental illness, I crawled into the misery of shame and guilt. What had I done?

I had spent a few days in the mental hospital before entering back into my community. A community I feared would reject me – a community that would tell me I was selfish for such an act. I expected to be surrounded by critics and onlookers who would tell me that my depression was a failure of faith.

But boy was I wrong.

I had experienced the Body of Christ in a way that I had only read in books, and heard in well-planned sermons. More than a dozen people, of all different ages and creeds, reached out their hands to me and invited me into their rest. They didn’t give me cliché, or a good book to read. They gave me themselves. They gave me Jesus. They intentionally and compassionately poured into me, day after day. It wasn’t a weeklong seminar or recovery facility. It was a group of people, in the middle of their busy, daily lives, reaching out to me. It took more than weeks, more than a month – it took nearly a year, yet they faithfully stood by be, and consistently poured into my life.

“I was hungry, and they gave me something to eat; I was thirsty, and they gave me something to drink; I was a stranger, and they invited me in; naked and they clothed me; I was sick and they visited me; I was in [the greatest] prison [ever], and they came to me.” – Matthew 25:35- 36

This wasn’t an organized rehabilitation community. It was the outrageous love of everyday individuals who daily chose to be present. They washed my wounds, and honored me as though I was royalty. They hid me in my shame and covered me with a cloak of honor.

Jesus didn’t come for those who were healthy, but He came for those who were sick. Mark 2:17

And He did just that – and they did just that. They showed up. Day after day, month after month, they showed up. They reached out their hands, gently opened their hearts and lives, and daily whispered; “I choose to love you today.”

It is a courageous story of a community that I truly believe, on that day, Christ will proudly utter, “Well done, good and faithful servants. Well done, my good and faithful friends.”

-Tiffana