A Rose in the Desert

She wanted to find out where those words were from. She borrowed her neighbor’s bible the next day. She was flipping through the pages when she realized the name of Jesus was everywhere. She started reading page after page. “Oh no!” she concluded, “I must be Jesus Christ!” Her mind interpreted the words of scripture so that if Jesus said something and she had experienced it, she concluded that she must be Jesus. Except for the brief encounter she had with God in hearing what she would later discover was Psalm 23, the frazzled thoughts of her mind were pulling her away from reality.

The following night, she had strong thoughts of revenge, obsessing about her desire to hurt Pete as much as she was hurting. She fell asleep out of pure exhaustion and awoke abruptly in the middle of the night. Her heart was racing and she was in a cold sweat. The words ‘born again’ heard numerous times from various television programs were ever present in her mind. She had an overwhelming urge to get the butcher knife from the kitchen, stab Pete and Paul so they could become born again and end this nightmare they were living in. She started towards the kitchen, her heart pounding, when from somewhere in her head she heard, “Run! … Run!” She turned towards the front door and ran outside onto the road barefoot and in her nightie. Pete heard her go out the front door and he stuck his head out the window.

“Shirley, come back in here! You’ll make a spectacle of yourself,” he yelled.

“No, I’m not coming in! Not until you get that guy Donny over here.”

“It’s 2:30 in the morning. I can’t call him now.”

“I don’t care what time it is. Call him or I’m not coming in.”

He disappeared from the window and she randomly started ringing neighbors’ doorbells in the hope of getting into a warm place. No one answered. “These people are imaginary! No one lives in these homes!” she concluded. “I wonder if there would be anyone at the hospital. It’s too far to go to discover that there’s no one there too. I must be insane!”

“Shirley, Shirley, Shirley, Shirley. Come back to the house!”

She slowly walked back. “He’ll be here in about 15 minutes. Come inside.”

“No! I’m not coming into the house with you,” she said for fear that the overwhelming compulsion would return.

“Have it your way.” He tossed a coat and a pair of shoes out the door.

Her neighbor’s Pastor Donny arrived shortly afterwards. He helped her put her coat and shoes on and led her into the house. He spoke briefly with Pete and then asked him, “Is this what you want for your wife?”

“No,” Pete answered.

“Then let me take her to the hospital.”

“Okay.”

He did just that.

The attendant from emergency put her on a stretcher and rolled her down to the psychiatric ward. Her body was involuntarily bouncing all over the bed. The doctor started injecting her with some drug. She smacked his hand in order to prevent him.

“Don’t do that,” the doctor said. “You need this in order to settle down.” He motioned for four other people to come and assist him in holding her down while he continued the procedure.

Shirley awoke on a May morning in the spring of 1977, in the psychiatric ward of the local hospital fully drugged. Her movements were jerky spasms and she drooled from what felt like a permanently opened mouth.

“Medications!” a nurse bellowed from behind the desk. She watched as a herd of people came from every direction, lined up in front of the desk, and silently waited their turn to receive medication. She had no desire to be given any further drugs. She hoped the nurse would miss her in her round-up.

Shirley made her way over to the couch of the common room and stood in the warmth of the blazing sunrays. “Well, God, I don’t know what has happened these past few days, but I don’t ever want to go back there again. Please teach me how to get out of this mess and I’ll follow you wherever you want me to go.”

Three days later, the psychiatrist’s words pounded into her head. “Well, Mrs. Samson, come in and have a seat. I regret to say that you are manic depressive, which means you have a chemical imbalance in your brain ... You will be subject to episodes like this for the rest of your life…”

Shirley left the doctor’s office and found a quiet place where she could talk out loud to God. “God, I don’t believe him. I refuse to accept his hopeless report. I really don’t understand all that he just said, but it doesn’t add up.” She looked upward and asked with the simplicity of a child, “How could You be so real that morning and there be no hope? I know you are real. No one can take that away from me. I don’t know if this is a one-time thing or something I’m going to have to deal with all my life.” She sat in silence a few minutes and then she added, “Give me the courage to walk after you and understand your plan for a healthy mind.”