I’ve spent much of the past twelve months as a patient at a psychiatric day hospital — a squat, rectangular building on the edge of a town just outside of London.

On my first day, I was terrified. Despite working in mental health awareness and advocacy for over a decade, stigma and fear hung around my mind like cobwebs. What would the other patients be like? What would the staff be like? Would I be locked in?

My fears were swiftly allayed when I was greeted by the kind-faced nurse I’d spoken to on the phone the day before.  She was gentle, guiding me through the surprisingly well-kept unit (a stark contrast to the run-down mental health offices I’ve been going to for nearly two decades).

I sat on the edge of the blue leather-like sofa, gazing around through unfocused eyes. How had it come to this, I wondered.

The other patients chatted as I jumped at every laugh or loud noise, unsure what to do with myself. Gingerly, I picked my journal out of my bag and began to write, my pen articulating thoughts my mind hadn’t even realised I was having.

I didn’t know then that this place and the staff in it would become a sanctuary. Back then, this psychiatric day hospital was like a distant planet. Now, it is closer to home than I could ever have imagined.

It has been my place of safety, and the staff have become as familiar to me as friends. They have seen me at my very worst . . . disassociated from the world, at the end of myself, and unable to stop my tears or thoughts from running faster than I could keep up with.

If these months have been a season of pruning, then my branches are bare. I have questioned everything in my life — even my very life itself — as mental illness seized the driving wheel and took with it my sanity. I am emerging, at the slowest pace, a different person… one who is officially disabled and unsure of what comes next.

Back in my teenage years, I learned that the language of lament was the only thing that could keep me connected to God in seasons like this. In those years, I could offer nothing but the rawest, most rage-filled thoughts. Now, I see that those, too, can be prayers.

For many months, I haven’t been able to muster raw or rage-filled thoughts. I have been wordless for the first (and I hope the last) time in my life. All I have been able to do is cry and pray that Romans 8:26 is true: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”

I’m surprised my faith hasn’t been pruned away alongside everything else that has been lost. But the truth is, God has felt closer to me in my “not doing” than I could have imagined. I’m too anxious and overwhelmed for church, too weak for service, too tired to seek a redemption story amidst the wreckage.

And, yet, this belief has grown greater: I am beloved by God.

From the start, before I ever lifted a single finger, I was included in the creation of humanity that was called “very good.” All of the volunteering, and working for Christian organizations — none of it made me more loved. All my wide, empty days, the lacerating pain, the disability — none of it has made me less loved.

The same is true for you, too.

As a friend of mine says, we could lay down and never lift a finger again and remain as loved as we are in all our busyness and bustle. My branches may be bare . . . but, as I remain in Jesus’ love, I remain connected to the vine from whom all life flows. John 15:9 tells us, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”

I don’t know what comes next for me when I leave this place in which I have remembered and experienced the love of God so profoundly. I do not know what yet may grow and bloom, bear fruit. But I know that as I remain in Him, I remain loved . . . forever.

And, for now, that is enough.

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