She said she was losing her soul. When she told me, there was no emotion. Not at first. “What do you mean? Your faith?”

“No,” she said, and then she tried to explain it. “I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do, or what I think I’m supposed to do. But it’s all on the outside.” She told me that she was lost. That if something didn’t change, she’d go mad. She prayed about it everyday and said it was like the man in the flood. He kept believing God would save him. When the rescuers came, he told them he didn’t need them. God would save him. When he was finally on his roof and a boat came, he still refused the help. No, God will save me, he told them.

After he drowned and got to heaven, he asked God, “Why didn’t you save me?”

God said, “I sent help and you refused it, even the boat at that last moment.”

“So, what has God sent you?” I asked her. She broke down then and gave me a list of friends and messages, all ignored. She wondered if she wasn’t just reading into things what she wanted to hear. Yes, she felt lost, felt that if she didn’t find the courage to take a step, she’d never be found again. But then she tells herself that it isn’t so bad, that she has blessings to count.

I want to be a life raft, or to throw her a life jacket, but I know both will float on that rising water and she would never see them, not with the glasses she wore now, all scratched and out of focus. But still, I can be here and let her know that I see her, that she isn’t completely lost, that even one tiny step in the right direction would eventually lead her back to herself.