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God is good. Always. I believe that to be true, but if I had been the patient, I'm not sure I would have been able to declare it with the same confidence Paige possessed. But it was clear that Paige had a peace and a hope that seemed almost foreign in that place. So maybe it's not surprising that later that week Cathy got her own sidewalk chalk and wrote: "Heaven = Paige."

And it wasn't just Cathy. Everyone in that place loved Paige. By the second day, she and three other women had already started joking about eating their meals together at the "bi-polar table." (Paige had been diagnosed as bi-polar almost immediately.) Everybody in that place who was sane enough, and not too drugged, to have a sense of humor seemed to enjoy making jokes about being crazy. I wasn't allowed to join in, Paige informed me. Only the patients could call one another crazy. But I didn't like those jokes, anyway. Not when they referred to Paige. Because I didn't want Paige to believe she was crazy. After all, she couldn't be crazy. I mean, how could she? I knew this girl …

On the third or fourth day of Paige's stay, I finally got to sit down with her social worker. After going over Paige's past and hearing the social worker's impressions of Paige's family, I finally said what I'd been thinking from the moment I first stepped through those two sets of locked doors: "Paige is different from these other people, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, she knows what's going on in her mind. She knows what she's dealing with. She's probably the most self-aware student I know."

"Yes, she's very intelligent."

"Yeah, but … ," I couldn't find a delicate way to say it, so I finally just let it out, "but she's not crazy. You know? She's not like these other people."

I could tell that the social worker was reluctant to agree with me. "Everyone who comes in here is different. They struggle with different things, and no two patients are exactly the same. But no one is here who doesn't need to be here."

I wanted to immediately write off this social worker's professional opinion. Sure, she might have years of experience, but she didn't know Paige. Not like I did.

I realize now that I was simply struggling to reconcile my impression of mental health facilities with the reality that someone I cared about—someone incredibly intelligent and wonderful—needed to be there. After all, I had convinced myself that it was her rough past which was to blame—that it was the abuses, the drugs, the sudden death of a friend, and parents who didn't know how to love her the way they should that prompted all of this. But again, what did I know?

Maybe I wanted reassurance that Paige wouldn't have to deal with this for the rest of her life. Unlike some of the other patients, who came in and out of the facility somewhat regularly, I wanted to hear that Paige would never need this again. I wanted to believe that, because Paige was a Christian, this was just part of God's healing process for her—but with the right combination of prayer, discipline, and medicine (if necessary), she'd walk out those two sets of locked doors and never look back.

Maybe I didn't like hearing that she doesn't really have that assurance.