The voice on the phone displayed a familiar dichotomy of urgency and weariness. The caller seemed to feel that the help he sought must come now, or never; yet he left the unmistakable impression that he had made this call before. His daughter was confined in a mental institution. It was not the first time. She had known a number of confinements in the past few years.

Her husband had finally given up trying to understand her, to help her, to have any kind of meaningful relationship with her. No longer able to pay the bills for her hospitalizations, he had declared bankruptcy and filed for, and gotten, a divorce. He had custody of their baby, as all agreed that she was unable to care responsibly for a child. She had no job, no driver’s license, no happiness, and, apparently no hope. Would I visit his daughter, the tired, but caring voice inquired?

When Mary and I arrived at the famous mental health facility, we found the staff un-cooperative. I was a pastor...strike one! Neither of us had a college degree in a field related to mental health...strike two! The staff was busy, overworked, short-handed, and exhibiting a growing impatience with the two unwelcome guests they viewed as intruders. They were about to force-feed the patient whose hunger strike had already lasted several days. We could see strike three coming! "Please! Before you force-feed her...just let us see her for twenty minutes...fifteen. We are here to help, not to hinder. What do you have to lose?" The doctors looked at each other, then at us. Force-feeding anyone is not a pleasant prospect. If they couldn’t avoid it, delaying it would at least give them time for a much needed break. It was time for a smoke. "Only one of you can go in...the pastor. Twenty minutes...that’s it, then you will have to leave." They seemed to endure the thought of our staying and to relish the thought of our leaving.

"Why aren’t you eating?" I enquired. Karen looked up and I smiled. Her eyes, initially hostile, melted to a wounded, hurting, helpless look. She was young enough to be my daughter. "I want to have some control over my life," she said despairingly, as if she realized she was losing a war of attrition. She couldn’t hold a job, or drive a car, or care for a baby. She had lost almost everything...her marriage, her home, even her dignity. She couldn’t leave the hospital. She couldn’t even go to the rest room without permission. She didn’t want to let everything go...that was too frightening.

"How much control over your life has the hunger strike given you?" She looked down at her lap for what seemed to be the longest time. Just when I was sure that she didn’t intend to answer, she looked me right in the eye. "About three percent," she said, speaking above a whisper for the first time. "Great!" I fairly shouted. "I think you’ve done a very good thing!" She was stunned. The doctors... the nurses... the attendants... her parents, all had told her that what she was doing was bad...very bad. They were threatening her. Force-feeding was not being offered as much to help her get well as to punish her for not going along with the program; for making their lives more difficult. Now this stranger was telling her that she had acted intelligently...that she had done a good thing, and she was suddenly interested in what he might say next. In the hall outside her ward, Mary and I had seen a teen-ager sitting on the floor in a corner. She was completely unresponsive to anything we said. She had retreated from the pain of living, crawling so far back inside herself that it is doubtful if she could even hear our voices. She had used the last vestige of control over her life to effect a retreat, withdrawing until there was seemingly no life left to control.

"I’m glad you refused to eat," I told Karen, "I wouldn’t want you to surrender all control of your life as a little girl out there in the hall has done. She’s lost everything...maybe forever. You have hung on to a little corner of your life and you are refusing to give it up. That’s very, very good."

"Would you like to enlarge that sphere of control? Take another step?" She indicated that she would. "How much control would you like to take today... realistically, of course?" "Maybe... thirteen percent," she offered tentatively, seeming to enjoy the prospect of this new and unanticipated adventure. "Okay, but you can’t do it by continuing your hunger strike. That was a brilliant first step. By not eating you took a stand, refusing to hand over the last of your life to others. That worked beautifully then, but it won’t work now. We need a new plan now, if we want to enlarge that measure of control. Do you want to get out of here?" She did. "As long as you refuse to eat, they are going to keep you here, or send you to someplace worse. To get out of here, you are going to have to convince these people that you really are in charge of your own affairs. You won a victory by not eating; now you must win another victory, this time by eating. Start taking responsibility for yourself, a little at a time. Don’t try to move the whole wall at once...just move one stone at a time."

Karen’s once lifeless eyes brightened with excitement. She saw it clearly. She had held on to a piece of herself when even that seemed threatened! She had made a decision for herself just when others demanded to make all of her decisions for her! She could do it again! Why not?

When we next talked to Karen, she was at home with her parents. "Sentenced" to several weeks of confinement, she had been released in three days. She had not been force-fed! She had used her own imagination about which "stones" to remove from the "wall" next. She kept assuming more and more responsibility for herself until the psychiatrists were persuaded to release her.

One month later, she had her driver’s license. Shortly afterward, she had a job. At first, she only visited her baby. Then she had custody for a day, for a week-end, for a week. She moved, and we lost touch. I wish that I could tell you that she got her marriage back and that she and her husband lived happily ever after. I can’t. Perhaps she did, perhaps she didn’t. I can only tell you what I know. A girl in her twenties with a long history of emotional instability and "mental" ill health, given up as hopeless by nearly everyone, made a deliberate decision to change her life, to take control of her thinking, and consequently her emotions. She hadn’t been able to drive, work, or care for a baby, but she changed all of that. She took control of Today, and began to build her Tomorrows.

All of us have power -- power to use constructively or destructively. God made us with intellect and will; He made us to have power. Even the unsaved have the power to do "good" or to do evil, to themselves or to others. When our intellectual and volitional capacities are presented to God, when we recognize our dependence on Him and our need of His guidance and enabling, we who have trusted the Savior are energized for life and ministry in a new and better way. Power, for better or for worse, goes with the turf of human experience. God’s power, the power of the indwelling Spirit acting upon our new nature through the dynamic of Scripture, can so change our lives as to make the future truly exceed our dreams. "The fruit of the Spirit is...self-control." (Galatians 5:23)