Her Name in the Sky

I can tell you that I believe—that the human heart’s mysterious ability to love others is never wrong. Your heart will never ask your permission to love. It’s going to love whomever it was made to love, and the best thing you can do is follow it.

She sees herself, and she does not look away.

Your heart will never ask your permission to love.

No one ever told me that it might be different. That it would be okay to be different.

We weren't made to be alone. We were made to love. And when we love, we automatically know God without trying to, because God is love. If we love as he made us to love—if we love with our hearts instead of our criteria—then we simply are love.

We have to take ownership for our words. Words are powerful. They can be devastating. If your words carry hate--if they shame others, if they make them doubt that they are loved--Hannah, you don't want to own words like that.

Hannah searches the clouds, the gulls, the sun. She wants to leave and she wants to stay. She wants to raise her hand to the heavens and command that everything top, that time stills, that the rules and the laws retract their grip so nature can have her way. Hannah wants to sit up off her towel and look across her friend's lined-up bodies, frozen in time beneath the sky, and she wants to pull Baker out of their midst, out of time, and walk with her along the shoreline, following the infinite ocean, nothing moving on the whole green earth except for the two of them and the water and the sky.

It's just us, right?' Hannah walks to her. She touches her cheek and finds her eyes. There is a desperate light hanging on her pupils. A flicker of passion, a flicker of shame. 'It's just us.

I’m sorry,’ Hannah says. ‘I’m sorry for putting you through this—I’m sorry for not telling you—I’m sorry for being the way that I am—’ “‘Don’t you say that,’ her mom says, jerking back from her and shaking her shoulders. “‘Don’t you ever say that,’ her dad says, tears spilling forth from his eyes. “Her mom looks at her straight on, and her expression is resolute. ‘God knew exactly what He was doing when He created you, Hannah.

Please,’ Hannah cries, sitting up on her knees and sobbing to the sky. She chokes, shudders, blinks away the tears. ‘Please, either help me or take this away from me. I don’t want this anymore.’ But her stormy heart does not settle. Her muscles do not relax. She looks at the stars and wonders why God made them so good, so brilliant, but made her so wrong and broken. Her eyes spill over with tears and her throat burns. She pounds her fists into the earth, into the grass and soil, and emits an animal-like cry from the depths of her body. ‘Please,’ she sobs, digging her hands into the soil. ‘Please.

I hurt you," Baker cries. "I hurt the one person I love more than anything else in the world." The swelling in Hannah's throat threatens to explode. Her sinuses prickle; her body rushes with uncontrollable feeling. "I hurt you, Han. I hurt you," Baker says, her body convulsing. The sobs burst out of Hannah's throat. "Yeah," she cries, choking on the word, hating that she needs to release it. "Yeah, you did. You hurt me. You really hurt me." Baker's face contorts with anguish. Her chin trembles; her mouth gaps around shuddering breaths. Her eyes bleed with agony. "I'm so-" she heaves. "I'm so-" "But Baker," Hannah says, touching a hand to her tears, "you also saved me." Baker's face screws up again. She heaves with more sobs, placing a hand over her ribs. "You saved me, too," she cries.

Hate like that—when it's disguised as love, or righteousness or pity—I'm not going to subject you to hate like that.

I think that the most essential thing is that God didn’t want Adam to be alone. God wanted Adam to be able to love someone. To have a relationship that reflected God’s own love. And so he made Eve so that Adam could love her. So that Adam could be fully human. And when he made Eve, he gave her the miraculous capacity to love Adam back. Do you ever think about how crazy that is? – Our miraculous capacity to love? We don’t know why, we don’t know how, but our hearts and souls are drawn to others. We weren’t made to be alone. We were made to love. And when we love, we automatically know God without even trying to, because God is love. If we love as he made us to love-if we love with our hearts instead of our criteria- then we simply are love.

She thinks about Christ. How she'd like to lay everything down at his feet. "Here you go," she'd say, dropping everything down like a pile of wood. "You gave me this, and I have no idea what to do with it." Then she'd take out a key, a big, clunky, golden key and she'd reach to unlock her heart with it. Her heart would open up and all kinds of wondrous things would come spilling out - maybe rushing forth like a waterfall, or maybe fluttering out gently like a butterfly. "Here it is," she'd tell him. "Everything that's in my heart, for you and me to see.

I was scared of you. Being around you, it was like—you were everything I wasn’t supposed to want. You’re—no one told me about you. When I was growing up, it was always, ‘One day, when you meet a nice boy,’ or, ‘When you have a husband….’ No one ever told me that it might be different. That it would be okay to be different.

She sets a hand on the cold sand and pushes herself forward until her lips meet Baker's with the delicate touch of tree leaves. And there on the beach, with the sand, the sky, and the water as their witnesses, Baker kisses her back, and Hannah hopes desperately that the crashing of the waves is a celebration rather than a condemnation.

She'd ask him to stand in her kitchen when Baker came over to hang out. She'd have him witness Baker's laughter, her smile, her kind heart, her vulnerability. Baker wouldn't see him, but he would see everything: the goodness of her heart and the light in her eyes. And afterwards, Hannah would ask him, 'How could I not love her?

Like being with you makes me a thousand times better than I am. Like my eyes are clearer when I look at things. And when I’m not with you, it’s like—like my heart can’t breathe.

Hannah looks through the windshield and begs the sky that her life will always be like this—large and loud and brimming with youth, but always followed by the quiet drive home and the promise of ending the night with her favorite person in the world.

They ride over pebbles and patches of dusk-colored sunlight, underneath the spread arms of the live oaks and the promise of their green leaves, past houses full of people and rules and prayers and magic. Hannah looks at Baker, and Baker extends her hand outward into the space between them, holding it palm-up for Hannah to take, right there in the heart of the garden.

Hannah stomps, buries, suffocates, wishes for death. "Yeah," she says. "I'm good.

She looks up at these trees and marvels at their existence, at how they just are what they were created to be, how they tower proudly on their wooden trunks, how they sway in the breeze and move their leaves like piano keys, and she prays that she can be like them, that she can innately grasp her existence and live it out without questioning.

I hurt you,” Baker cries. “I hurt the one person I love more than anyone else in the world.

She lies there, bleeding into the sky, until the sky starts to bleed red with morning.

Hannah,” Ms. Carpenter says softly. I think we all hide from God sometimes. We all have things we’re ashamed of. The essential thing is that you work through it.” “How am I supposed to do that?” Ms. Carpenter turns her head from side to side, her eyes glazed over in thought. “You refuse to be imprisoned by that shame. You realize that you are good – you are good because God made you – and you claim that goodness.

I am a father of the church—’ ‘And I’m Hannah’s father, and I’m telling you to walk away. Walk away before you hurt these kids any more than you already have.

Hannah drives to City Park. Though she would normally sit in her car, tonight she roams onto the golf course and lies on her back beneath the sky. She raises her hand into the humid air and imagines that she can stir it with her fingers, like a child discovering paint for the first time. ‘I’m here to talk to you,’ she tells the sky. The leaves on the oak trees tickle with the breeze. The earth buzzes with insects and secrets, and Hannah listens carefully, wanting to know what they say. ‘Tell me what to do,’ she says.

I don’t even know if it’s okay for us to be what we are—’ ‘Stop it!’ Joanie yells, pushing Hannah back against the sink. ‘Stop! Stop saying that!’ ‘It’s true!’ ‘It’s not true!’ ‘THEN LOOK ME IN THE EYE,’ Hannah roars, ‘AND TELL ME, WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, THAT HOW I FEEL ISN’T WRONG THAT IT’S NOT BAD, THAT IT’S NOT DISGUSTING AND PERVERTED AND F---ED UP—’ ‘IT’S NOT!’ Joanie screams, shoving Hannah hard. Hannah falls back against the sink; at once, she feels a bruise bloom on the skin of her back. Joanie glares at her, her eyes still blazing, and Hannah breathes heavily and blinks against the warm tears forming in her eyes. ‘I don’t believe you,’ Hannah says.

Baker doesn’t catch her eye or smile at her, and every joke or remark Hannah says to the others seems to materialize from a scared, hollow place inside of her.