This is March. In March I look back. In March I have Thanksgiving. And, I remember.
I remember that I am a survivor. I know that I am a thriver. I am these things because of the love of Jesus; I love him only because he first loved me. The Beloved literally snatched me from death when I was 23 years old.
It was March in my twenty-third year. I was heavily medicated with Thorazine that winter. March was the same. I had been diagnosed as a manic depressant (now called bi-polar) the previous December. In March I took a handful of Thorazine and lay down to die.
But God… (I love this prepositional phrase each time it appears in the Bible.) But God had other plans!
I was later told how my (then) husband had left work in the first hour of his shift because he had left his wallet at the house and needed to pay a co-worker for a tool part. He found and drove my body to the hospital 10 minutes away where they tried to revive me, pumped my stomach and then walked out hours later shaking their heads saying to him and my mother, “We did all we could. She is in God’s hands now.”
When I woke up the next morning the first thing I saw was a crucifix that I recognized as belonging to my Mother, pinned to the smooth white hospital sheet tucked tightly across my chest. I am sure the corpus is what brought God to my mind because I then said, “My God! Why am I still alive?” And, I heard these words, “Because I want you to be.” I responded to that voice with, “Well, then, you better take this life because I have really messed it up.”
God took me at my word.
I later decided I was misdiagnosed and never bi-polar because I never shared my traumas with my (then) psychiatrist. He was operating off what he saw. That spring and all that following year, I claimed God’s baptismal promises. The husband asked for and received a divorce in my 24th year because he was not pleased with my changes.
Easter is in March this year. So, I am sharing my March story of resurrection.
I want everyone that has an ear to hear to hear how the love from The Beloved is like no other love! I want anyone that is hurting to know that a life surrendered to Jesus can be a life of deep grace and great healing. If my experience can lessen the suffering of another or if it can bring one soul hope, such would only be the due reflection of the undying love of Jesus the Christ, The Beloved for all of creation and every soul within it.
Inez Torres Davis is director for justice.