I climbed the wide steps to the doors that opened into Lancaster General Hospital. The Victorian structure stood high overlooking the city like an austere nurse, arms crossed and peering down upon her patients. I was grateful I was only a visitor and not a resident. The five-story building loomed heavy with stone windows and dark, soot-laden brick. The top floor had bars across the windows. I was visiting a woman who’d had routine surgery.

The day was windy, so I wore a navy jacket with my collar up. It was the warmest and cheapest jacket I could find at the Army and Navy Surplus. My clerical collar was my obvious passport to visit whomever I wished in this institution. People didn’t need to know my name — as long as they saw the ring around my neck. They usually called me “Father” or “Vicar” — or a number of other terms I preferred not to hear. (In England that year the Christian faith was out of style — in fact, it had been since World War II.)

As I reached for the door a woman came rushing up the steps to my right. She was breathless and stopped to gulp a second before her pleading began.

“Vicar, please Vicar, would you visit a nephew of mine? He was admitted yesterday, and he has no one here to visit him. Please.”

“Well, yes. I can visit him. I have another visit first, but sure, I can easily stop by and visit your nephew. What is his name?”

“Oh bless you, Father, bless you.”

“No, no, don’t call me ‘Father’ yet … but maybe some day.” She missed the pun, and I decided her nephew’s condition was more serious than humor would allow.

“My nephew’s name is James Lord. His mind has snapped. The police found him wandering the streets babbling yesterday. Didn’t even know his own name. Police put him in a paddy wagon and stuck him up there. He’s up on five, the psych ward.”

I looked up at the barred windows and then back toward the woman, who was now at the bottom of the steps and rushing to get a taxi. The wind blew, and I shivered as I walked through the double doors into a time warp.

The interior was even more austere than the outside. The walls were painted a gloss green, and the equipment that rattled around me seemed to come out of a World War II movie. Nurses rushed past in white tights, uniforms and starched headdresses that denoted their seniority and rank. The only warm color was on the candy stripers.
These hopeful volunteers were still naïve enough to smile in such a harsh environment.
I made my pastoral visit to Mrs. Young, then moved back to the information desk to inquire about James Lord. Sure enough, he was on the psych ward. I took the lift and wished I’d taken the stairs. The contraption stuttered all the way to the top.

The fifth floor was a world unto itself, same walls and equipment but different patients. Once locked inside, I found people milling about, each lost in a private world. Most of the patients here were young, which troubled me very much. They all looked hopelessly lost, wandering in a semiconscious state. Some were given drugs while a queue of people waited for their regular doses of electric shock therapy. I stared in disbelief — I didn’t know they still practiced that.

I found James staring into space in an overstuffed chair. He’d just returned from his shock treatment. I pulled a chair up in front of him. With the steel back facing him, I straddled the chair and leaned close and looked into his eyes. They were worlds away.
“James. My name is Skip. I’ve come to visit you. James? James?”

There was not the slightest flicker of acknowledgment. I moved my head in the direction of his stare; his eyes looked right through me into nothingness. I realized then that whatever trauma James had endured had been severe enough to make him swim away from reality to hide in numbness. He was in another mental state that I could not reach. But God could.

Inexperienced as I was in the psychobabble of trauma, shock treatment and sedatives, I did what I knew to do. I told him about Jesus Christ. I talked like he was listening with rapt attention and told him how Jesus cared enough that He could change his broken world with hope. I prayed with James. I touched his shoulder as I looked into his eyes. I told him that I would come back and visit him tomorrow and the next day, and the day after that.

I kept my promise. Day after day I visited James, but his stare remained caught up in that lost, unreachable country. I continued to talk to him about Jesus. I discovered that the psychiatrists had had no more success than I had. After three days James had not shown the slightest flicker of understanding or so much as grunted a sound at me.
On the fourth day I went through the same wonderful story of Jesus’ love for James Lord. I told him that it was because of Jesus’ love that I came. Still no sign of recognition. When I got up to go he remained unmoved, staring into the empty space I had just occupied. I started to walk away.

“D-don’t g-go y-yet.” I pivoted on my heels with great excitement. He wasn’t looking at me, but he was reaching for me, his eyes slightly off course toward the hallway.
I rushed back to James and took him by the shoulders. “James Lord. I am Skip, your friend. Do you understand that?” His head nodded slowly in response. I was thrilled.
“Your n-name and n-number.”

I scribbled down my name and telephone number and tucked it into his hand. He held it tight, still not looking at me, but I knew that God was breaking through.

The next day I couldn’t wait to get to the institution. But I was startled when they told me he’d been discharged that morning.

“How can that be? He was in no state to be discharged.”

“His mother needed him. She insisted that he return home. A taxi driver collected him, and off he went.”

“I still don’t understand.” James was far from recovery. He could not function in the outside world right now. “Can I have his address?”

“I’m sorry. We can’t give that information out. Confidentiality and all that.”

I left consumed with disappointment. I’d failed to break through to this desperate twentysomething man. He had a whole life ahead of him. Now he was gone, and I had no way of finding him.

Six months passed, and ministry opportunities filled my daily hours. I thought of James often and prayed. I could do nothing but pray. It was a cold spring morning when the phone rang. The man’s voice was not familiar; his diction was precise.

“I’m trying to find Pastor Skip Ball. Have I called the right number?”

“Yes, sir, you have. This is Skip. Can I help you?”

“My name is James Lord ….” I almost shivered out of my skin. “I remember you visiting me often in the hospital, and I’ve pondered the stories you told me about Jesus. Firstly, I want to thank you for caring so much. Secondly, I wanted to ask if I might visit you next week and perhaps stay overnight on Monday.”

He quickly explained. “I’m having my oral exam at the university, and it’s scheduled first thing Tuesday morning. I felt talking with you before my big day would be the best thing for me.”

James came for tea on Monday and stayed the night. His story was tragic. His father had died suddenly, leaving him with an ailing, penniless mother. James had been studying for his doctorate at the University of Lancaster. To help his mother survive he started working two jobs. He studied at night. His greatest challenge was facing an oral exam. He was terrified.

The day of the exam he had just snapped. The stress was more than he could handle, and his mind simply shut down. A bleary trip in a police car, incarceration in a mental ward, a drug-induced state and regular electric shock treatments only sent him further over the edge into an abyss. James’ brain had retreated into hibernation for survival.
He recovered slowly, his sense of responsibility very gradually pulling him out of the morass of despair. Words of hope kept springing to his mind from the stories he’d heard. He began to remember and found the scrap of paper tucked away in a drawer.
On Tuesday James would face that oral exam again, standing before a team of brilliant scholars. Would he survive? They were exacting. But James wanted more than the degree. He wanted the hope offered through Christ. I had the joy of witnessing James receive His Savior.

At breakfast James appeared to be mesmerized by the scriptures he’d read through the night. He was particularly fascinated by the promises in Psalm 1 for those who seek righteousness.

“James, did you sleep last night?”

“Too excited. I enjoyed reading the Psalms so much I couldn’t put them down,” he added. “The Lord promises to watch over the way of the righteous. That’s me, right?”
“Yes. Righteous in Christ. Are you ready for your oral exam today?”

“I haven’t given it much thought. I am trusting Him to help me. Thank you for pointing me to Jesus.”

We prayed, and James headed for the university. He promised to call when he finished. I waited nervously by the phone that evening. The phone rang only once. I grabbed it.

“Skip, this is James.”

“Well, how did it go?”

“Flawless. My focus was not on me but on Him. My breakthrough was last night, not this morning. Meditating on God’s way rather than mine was the answer.”