The above scripture is written on my heart. I might say this one is not only “written,” but probably “engraved” in the depths of my heart.

This word is very special to me because it was this word which came to me in the deep turmoil I was going through in my younger years. My mother spoke this word to me when I was in my thirties. My mother was in her 70’s and she would pray for me beside my bed at night. She would hold my hand and attempt to comfort me. I was going through a desperate time. My husband of eight years had suddenly left me and was filing for divorce. I was so ill with depression and had been through many hospitalizations, electro shock therapies, and group therapies. I was unable to live alone and had come back to my parents’ home because I had no where to go.

I will never forget those days, walking with my father to the fishing pond, and sitting beside him as he baited the hook. I had just come to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and I could not understand why I was experiencing such devastation right after discovering that Jesus loved me.

It was actually Jesus Himself who had placed me in my parents’ home. Finding your way through a divorce after 8 years of marriage is difficult enough in itself with out the struggle of clinical depression. I had almost daily thoughts of suicide, smoked four packs of cigarettes a day, and struggled constantly with my new found faith. But God was taking control of my life!! One step at a time, day by day!

You may ask “where were the Christians? Why weren’t they helping you?”

I asked myself those questions a thousand times.

One Pastor was brave enough to answer me . He said to me, “We just don’t know how to help you. We just don’t have the answers, but Jesus does. He can help you. All we can do is pray for you and leave the rest to Jesus.”

At the time, his answer only angered me and drove me further away.

But, looking back, I realize the Pastor was truthful. After all, I was a hard case. I “heard voices”, suffered from convulsions almost daily, smoked, drank, was full of fears and terrors, and didn’t trust anyone.

One of the worst parts of this scenario was that my friends were all married and having children. They had homes and families.

I was sitting with my dad on the banks of the neighbors’ fishing pond with tears running down my face, trying to put a worm on a hook.

I had been diagnosed with everything from bi-polar depression, to schizophrenia, to borderline personality and even multiple personality disorder.

As I began to re-learn how to live, even starting over in my own parents’ home, I started to re-trace the steps of my life that had led me to this place!

I had begun to smoke and drink before the age of 20. I had turned away from God and from church because I felt rejected and did not believe God cared about me. Hurts and wounds from various types of abuse became buried shrapnel in my heart.

When the buried schrapnel got large enough I built more walls around my heart until I had fashioned a fortress!

I will never forget the desperateness of those days and the suffocating loneliness I felt at night. In my room there were banners left over from my high school years, trophies I’d won were still on the walls…my life was one of “great promise”. I can remember lying in my bed in my room in my parents’ house feeling even that God had brought me there to die….and that no one would ever love me.

One night I was sobbing in to my pillow when I heard the shuffle of feet moving toward my bed. My mother’s voice pierced the darkness that was thick in the air as she took my hand. “Be still, Sandy. Be still. God knows all about this, Sandy. Be still. He is still God. He has all this in His Hand…Sandy. He knows what to do. He knows all your hurts. Be still, Sandy. Shhhh. Shhh. “ She patted my hand with hers.

Sometimes I would wake up thinking my husband was lying next to me in bed, only to realize he was not and I was never going to see him again.

It was one of those times, my mother came to me with her words, “Be Still, Sandy, Be Still. Let God have this. Let God have it.”

I knew I was very sick. The memories of the hospitals I’d been in, the locks, the keys, the nurses and doctors, the shots, the shock treatments, the memory loss all seemed to come down on me at night like large black boulders and all night long they pushed me around on the bed. Sleep was something other people did. I knew that I was not going to be able to stay in my parents’ home very long with out another key opening another door to another hospital room and I was right.

One night during a series of convulsions that I was having, an ambulance came and two men picked me up and drove me away to Evansville, Indiana, to a large hospital there where I stayed for three months.

This hospitalization was a turning point. ..It was one of those moments, those times you never forget. I can almost divide my life into two sections, my life BEFORE this ambulance trip, and my life AFTER this ambulance trip.

God was with me. God was there. He began to manifest His presence to me in a very real way. He never spoke, He just came in His Presence.

Sometimes, because I refused to speak, I was locked in solitary confinement for days on end. It was during those times that Jesus’ presence was with me so strongly. I remember one day I wrote on my breakfast menu “Bring me strawberries.” Nobody got strawberries for breakfast. It was not even on the menu.

But when my tray came up, there they were. Bright red strawberries in a cream colored dish. I knew Jesus sent them.

The doctors wanted to know all about me. But I was sick of talking and refused to talk. They wanted me to talk about my relationship with Jesus, which I would not talk about at all. Mostly all I did was cry and write all around the borders of my menus.

God was still with me. To every doctor, to every person who knew me, I was as good as gone. My parents would come to see me and I would refuse to see them. I would not talk to anyone.

God was still with me.

In the midst of the other voices screaming at me, God was still there. In the tiny room with the iron bed and the bars on the door, God was there.

I was “being still.”
No one knew that. The doctors didn’t know it. The nurses didn’t know it.
My parents didn’t know it.
But God understood what I was doing.
I was “being still”. I was “knowing” Him.
Lots of silence.
Lots of passivity for someone who had been so disturbed and even violent like myself.
I was being still and He was being God.

Quitely, silently, I signed papers to commit myself to an Indiana State Mental Hospital.

It was against the physicians’ orders. It was against everything the medical profession said to me. They did not want me to go into this institution. They said that I might not come out.

I signed the papers. I was withdrawing from everything man said.

I went to the hospital on the hill. Some had been there 20 years, some 30, some forever.

I was 30 years old.

When I was inside and the doors were locked I found myself in an environment that was indescribable. ..a place I never want to see again. There were bars on the windows in a large room with 80 iron beds. There was no fan although it was the beginning of summer. There were lockers lining the wall with no locks.

My belongings were piled onto the iron bed with my name on it and dozens of women suddenly appeared and bounded upon my bed grabbing whatever they could fit into their hands and running away with it.

In that hospital I developed a respect for life I did not have. In that hospital, I learned to stand up for what I believed in no matter what happened to me. I learned to pray for those there who were worse off than me, for the retarded ones and for those who had no idea what life was outside that institution.

It was there, in that secluded mental hospital,all alone that I decided I wanted to live. It was a big decision. But it was real. It was the first time I had desired to live in years.

I started to watch the sun come up in the morning. A bird would come to the bars on the windows and sing. I looked forward to hearing this bird in the morning. I looked forward to seeing the Sun rise.

Through all the severe medications that impaired my central nervous system, I found a deep appreciation for simple movement. I talked to some of the Very seriously ill patients and once I got beaten up by one of them for no reason. I learned I could not take vengeance and it was time to forgive.

The greatest thing I learned was that God is God. He is THERE. No matter WHERE we go, no matter WHAT we are going through, no matter HOW we feel. He is there.

Today I remembered and I had to write about the time I learned that scripture. It’s never too late to learn that scripture.It’s never too late to Be Still and Know He is God.

But someday….someday it will be.

God delivered me from prisons of unforgiveness and hospitals that have bars on the windows. God delivered me from convulsions and hatred and smoking and drinking and abuse. Wherever you are today, God is there for you. Sometimes we are all so noisy we can’t hear God speaking.

Perhaps it is time for you to be still also, and to know that He is God. If you do not know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, take a few minutes and look up to Heaven. Be Still. He is there.

He is with you. He is calling to you. Open the doors of your heart and let Him in. Give him the buried shrapnel that you keep there. You can trust Him.

God cares about healing hearts.

Article is copyrighted by Sondra Stallman.
May not reprint without permission from author.