My story with God, Pt. 3
My wife-to-be had been a slave-girl all her life. Zeny grew up in impoverished northern Brazil with her resentful and abusive grandmother, because both her parents had abandoned her and her siblings. After a long 12 year career as a housekeeper and daycare nanny since the age of 6, she finally arrived in America with a diplomat family. Typical of the live-in maid situation, they treated her as a slave. She was only allowed to eat leftovers, and that after everyone else had eaten and the dishes were washed. She was never permitted to eat inside the house, but in the back yard, winter and summer, year round. The husband was a good man and faithfully paid her weekly; but the wife would come from behind and, as faithfully, demand the money from Zeny or threaten to deport her. Eventually, the wife saved up enough to treat her husband to a Caribbean cruise. While they were gone, the 4 teenage children partied every night. Finally, after hosting one too many parties, one morning Zeny walked over the unconscious, snoozing bodies on the floor, and escaped to freedom.
She ended up lost and ultimately in the house of members of my church. So she eventually met me in the church. One day, my mother said I had received a desperate phone call. I called back and it was Zeny sadly saying she didn’t want to live here anymore and was leaving for Brazil, but could I visit her? I went the next Sabbath to visit her. I began dating Zeny, an unbeliever, because she loved me.
But I still needed to cover my tracks at church. I acted the part of the shining star of the SDA youth; but my sparkles were sputtering. After 9 months we decided to get married. I invited four friends from my old New Hampshire school; my mother’s Methodist pastor married us; other friends from my SDA church were there; but it was my last day as a Seventh-day Adventist. I had successfully escaped! I could leave now without fear of going it alone because I had someone to love and who loved me! Nothing but green pastures and an endless highway without any bumps or bruises, forever! And they would live happily ever after...—or so I thought.
An event to dread was just around the corner. My boss, who we invited to the wedding, laid me off during our conversation at the wedding reception. “Oh, by the way, I can't afford you anymore. Sorry.” My God of grace and truth was setting me up with an easy transition to a new life. If I wanted to leave Him and do life without Him, He would facilitate! So, I looked around the next day and found another crew who hired me. They were starting a house to frame up that coming Saturday and I wouldn’t have to be an MIA from Saturday work anymore! It would be my very first Sabbath away from church and I would be working like everyone else!
My new crew was cleaning off the foundation in preparation to start building, when a Chevy truck pulled up and the driver rolled down his window. I was right next to the pick-up because I was working on the foundation closest to the street and everyone else was farther away. So that they all could hear it, the driver blurted out as loudly as he could, “Hey, everybody! Guess where I should be this morning?! In church!!” IN CHURCH, IN CHURCH echoed in my head and struck like lightning, reverberating like thunder. My head started spinning and I felt a burning sensation come over me. God is following me. Act non-chalant. Maybe He will go away. I waited out the danger, and as the impact slowly lessened and my heart slowed, I tried to hide my discomposure. I girded up my loins and shrugged the whole thing off. I never got a message from heaven that loudly ever again.
Two months later, Zeny was pregnant and had to quit a job she had wanted to end for a long time. She finally had rest from the cares as a live-in maid/arbitrator for a dysfunctional wealthy family. So we survived on my meager carpentry income.
Times got harder and Zeny met some friends who were just about to retire from the Navy. They gave her glowing reports of what a good time they had had and all the benefits of military retirement. She relayed them to me, and tried to convince me to follow my Dad’s career in the Navy. Finally, one day in the bitter cold of winter, the other carpenter and I were scrounging around in the dirt of the building lot, looking for bent nails. We had to straighten our own nails in order to do our job on the newly framed house because the building company wouldn’t buy us any new ones. I had had enough. I had felt mistreated other times before, but this was the last straw. We didn’t even rate new nails for our job. So, for my first time ever, I packed up my tools and left. I was bound for the Navy recruiting office. I took the ASVAB test and scored high, because Richard had been my mentor in scholastics. The recruiters came out from grading the test, sad that since I was 26 years old, I was two years too old to go into nuclear training. They mourned because they could have gotten extra points for a nuke recruit.
So off I went to the military receiving center in Baltimore. The person asked me what field of work I wanted to get into. I knew something about the SeaBees (Construction Batallion), and just leaving a bad construction environment, I steered away from the SeaBees and toward electronics. They told me about Submarine Sonar and it sounded good. The salary would also be higher because of Submarine pay.
My son, Joey, was only a year old when I left for Boot Camp and I had to stay for an electronics school after Boot Camp finished. I was away for almost 4 months, which was an eternity to my little boy. I flew home long enough to get my truck and go to Connecticut for submarine school. Another eternal absence for my beloved son. But I had a school on a sonar system following sub school and I came home over Christmas leave en route to California. Those two weeks passed too quickly, staying with Joey his every waking moment and doing everything together with Zeny. My heart sunk out when I had to leave. I tired to act like a brave father, but my heart was breaking.
When I arrived to the sonar school in San Diego I was informed that I had a second school that would keep me there until August! I struggled to swallow the reality of loneliness for that long period, and absence from the only people I loved. Finally, in desperation, I went to my counselor and he worked it out for me to drive home and get my little family. And I had a week to do it in after the present school ended. His only question was how old my vehicle was. I told him it was a year old F-150 and he got permission for me.
Overjoyed, I finished that school while at the same time lining everything up and coordinating with my father, so that the move would go smoothly. I didn’t have any room in the one week schedule for any problems. I would drive 2,500 miles in 3 days. Then I would turn around and immediately return in 4 days. What a good plan! With plenty of coffee I could do it! I was desperate! And, obviously, less than smart.
Driving from the west coast to the western border of Texas totally exhausted me. Little cat naps weren’t enough to rest me, but I drove on through Little Rock, Arkansas. While there, winding around detours because of interstate road construction, I hallucinated that I was in the passenger seat, talking to the driver—who was me. Somehow, my angel got me out of all that safely. Finally, the second night, I stopped east of Memphis. For the first time I had allotted myself 6 hours of sleep in the back of my truck. I had brought a really loud wind-up alarm clock, (because I was smart!). Through my bleary eyes I set the time wrong. The alarm went off like a bomb shell after only a short 2 ½ hours of sleep. I now know what it was like in WWII when a ship was hit by a torpedo. Madness everywhere! It took a few minutes to find the clock in the pitch black and turn off the bedlam. By then, I felt somewhat alert, and was afraid of falling into a coma-like hibernation for two days. So I got back into the driver seat and moved on.
All that next day, I dragged across Tennessee and up the long side of Virginia to Herndon by 2:30 the next a.m. I dropped dead in bed that night and got up early to start packing. But I sat down for a second and fell asleep in the yard for several hours while Zeny and Dad moved our household goods into the U-haul trailer. So we were ready to leave in the morning. That night I had a fitful sleep, thinking of all the things to do and worrying about oversleeping. I recount all this only to show that my angel protected us while I was driving intoxicated with exhaustion.
After the first couple of hours of driving, I was seriously nodding off behind the wheel. I begged Zeny, who hadn’t learned to drive with a clutch, to take a crash course, for my sake. I told her I could get her started by sitting next to her and working the clutch and gears, and she would just steer in high gear for a couple of hours at a time, while my brain could catch up on some rest. But no matter how nicely I begged, she flatly refused. Who can blame her? So I burned up brain cells for the next four days trying to get back to the West Coast. I was discovering that life without the Lord can be a real drag.
Finally, I finished school and got my first command in Charleston. My wife was pregnant again and would be due when I would start my first deployment. We hoped that our baby would come during an in-port maintenance period prior to the patrol, so that I would be with her when our daughter came. But that didn’t happen, and Betania was born after my boat was two weeks into its patrol. That was a long, long first deployment for me. I didn’t get to see my new baby for 3 months.
It was the late ‘80’s and I felt the need to learn computers, since the 386 processor and a 2400 baud rate modem were the latest things hitting the market. I looked in the Yellow Pages and called Advanced Digital Systems. A kindly, soft spoken man accepted my offer to work for nothing so that I could learn from him. Tobin had had cancer and now ate whole grains and whole foods in order to fight it; his wife made him freshly cooked rice and beans for his lunch every day. His simple food reminded me of my past vegan diet, and I encouraged him in its healthfulness.
He gave me his testimony and told me how he used to be the typical educated atheist, and living the good life. But one night a big storm blew in while he was on his little motorized sailboat off the coast, with his wife and baby son onboard. They lost control because the seas got so tempestuous. He had locked the hatch, but the waves were crashing over his little craft, and they almost capsized many times. That scrape with death struck his fearlessness, shook him out of his foolishness, and dashed his pride on the rocks. He was a Christian now. I could see the humility in him and it pulled on my heart. But I didn’t let on that I had been in a similar condition of faith that he was.
A minute, subliminal seed of faith was being rekindled in me because of his genuineness and gentleness, though, and would soon enough germinate and bring forth life. I will love to meet Tobin again some day in the courts of heaven and thank him.
She ended up lost and ultimately in the house of members of my church. So she eventually met me in the church. One day, my mother said I had received a desperate phone call. I called back and it was Zeny sadly saying she didn’t want to live here anymore and was leaving for Brazil, but could I visit her? I went the next Sabbath to visit her. I began dating Zeny, an unbeliever, because she loved me.
But I still needed to cover my tracks at church. I acted the part of the shining star of the SDA youth; but my sparkles were sputtering. After 9 months we decided to get married. I invited four friends from my old New Hampshire school; my mother’s Methodist pastor married us; other friends from my SDA church were there; but it was my last day as a Seventh-day Adventist. I had successfully escaped! I could leave now without fear of going it alone because I had someone to love and who loved me! Nothing but green pastures and an endless highway without any bumps or bruises, forever! And they would live happily ever after...—or so I thought.
An event to dread was just around the corner. My boss, who we invited to the wedding, laid me off during our conversation at the wedding reception. “Oh, by the way, I can't afford you anymore. Sorry.” My God of grace and truth was setting me up with an easy transition to a new life. If I wanted to leave Him and do life without Him, He would facilitate! So, I looked around the next day and found another crew who hired me. They were starting a house to frame up that coming Saturday and I wouldn’t have to be an MIA from Saturday work anymore! It would be my very first Sabbath away from church and I would be working like everyone else!
My new crew was cleaning off the foundation in preparation to start building, when a Chevy truck pulled up and the driver rolled down his window. I was right next to the pick-up because I was working on the foundation closest to the street and everyone else was farther away. So that they all could hear it, the driver blurted out as loudly as he could, “Hey, everybody! Guess where I should be this morning?! In church!!” IN CHURCH, IN CHURCH echoed in my head and struck like lightning, reverberating like thunder. My head started spinning and I felt a burning sensation come over me. God is following me. Act non-chalant. Maybe He will go away. I waited out the danger, and as the impact slowly lessened and my heart slowed, I tried to hide my discomposure. I girded up my loins and shrugged the whole thing off. I never got a message from heaven that loudly ever again.
Two months later, Zeny was pregnant and had to quit a job she had wanted to end for a long time. She finally had rest from the cares as a live-in maid/arbitrator for a dysfunctional wealthy family. So we survived on my meager carpentry income.
Times got harder and Zeny met some friends who were just about to retire from the Navy. They gave her glowing reports of what a good time they had had and all the benefits of military retirement. She relayed them to me, and tried to convince me to follow my Dad’s career in the Navy. Finally, one day in the bitter cold of winter, the other carpenter and I were scrounging around in the dirt of the building lot, looking for bent nails. We had to straighten our own nails in order to do our job on the newly framed house because the building company wouldn’t buy us any new ones. I had had enough. I had felt mistreated other times before, but this was the last straw. We didn’t even rate new nails for our job. So, for my first time ever, I packed up my tools and left. I was bound for the Navy recruiting office. I took the ASVAB test and scored high, because Richard had been my mentor in scholastics. The recruiters came out from grading the test, sad that since I was 26 years old, I was two years too old to go into nuclear training. They mourned because they could have gotten extra points for a nuke recruit.
So off I went to the military receiving center in Baltimore. The person asked me what field of work I wanted to get into. I knew something about the SeaBees (Construction Batallion), and just leaving a bad construction environment, I steered away from the SeaBees and toward electronics. They told me about Submarine Sonar and it sounded good. The salary would also be higher because of Submarine pay.
My son, Joey, was only a year old when I left for Boot Camp and I had to stay for an electronics school after Boot Camp finished. I was away for almost 4 months, which was an eternity to my little boy. I flew home long enough to get my truck and go to Connecticut for submarine school. Another eternal absence for my beloved son. But I had a school on a sonar system following sub school and I came home over Christmas leave en route to California. Those two weeks passed too quickly, staying with Joey his every waking moment and doing everything together with Zeny. My heart sunk out when I had to leave. I tired to act like a brave father, but my heart was breaking.
When I arrived to the sonar school in San Diego I was informed that I had a second school that would keep me there until August! I struggled to swallow the reality of loneliness for that long period, and absence from the only people I loved. Finally, in desperation, I went to my counselor and he worked it out for me to drive home and get my little family. And I had a week to do it in after the present school ended. His only question was how old my vehicle was. I told him it was a year old F-150 and he got permission for me.
Overjoyed, I finished that school while at the same time lining everything up and coordinating with my father, so that the move would go smoothly. I didn’t have any room in the one week schedule for any problems. I would drive 2,500 miles in 3 days. Then I would turn around and immediately return in 4 days. What a good plan! With plenty of coffee I could do it! I was desperate! And, obviously, less than smart.
Driving from the west coast to the western border of Texas totally exhausted me. Little cat naps weren’t enough to rest me, but I drove on through Little Rock, Arkansas. While there, winding around detours because of interstate road construction, I hallucinated that I was in the passenger seat, talking to the driver—who was me. Somehow, my angel got me out of all that safely. Finally, the second night, I stopped east of Memphis. For the first time I had allotted myself 6 hours of sleep in the back of my truck. I had brought a really loud wind-up alarm clock, (because I was smart!). Through my bleary eyes I set the time wrong. The alarm went off like a bomb shell after only a short 2 ½ hours of sleep. I now know what it was like in WWII when a ship was hit by a torpedo. Madness everywhere! It took a few minutes to find the clock in the pitch black and turn off the bedlam. By then, I felt somewhat alert, and was afraid of falling into a coma-like hibernation for two days. So I got back into the driver seat and moved on.
All that next day, I dragged across Tennessee and up the long side of Virginia to Herndon by 2:30 the next a.m. I dropped dead in bed that night and got up early to start packing. But I sat down for a second and fell asleep in the yard for several hours while Zeny and Dad moved our household goods into the U-haul trailer. So we were ready to leave in the morning. That night I had a fitful sleep, thinking of all the things to do and worrying about oversleeping. I recount all this only to show that my angel protected us while I was driving intoxicated with exhaustion.
After the first couple of hours of driving, I was seriously nodding off behind the wheel. I begged Zeny, who hadn’t learned to drive with a clutch, to take a crash course, for my sake. I told her I could get her started by sitting next to her and working the clutch and gears, and she would just steer in high gear for a couple of hours at a time, while my brain could catch up on some rest. But no matter how nicely I begged, she flatly refused. Who can blame her? So I burned up brain cells for the next four days trying to get back to the West Coast. I was discovering that life without the Lord can be a real drag.
Finally, I finished school and got my first command in Charleston. My wife was pregnant again and would be due when I would start my first deployment. We hoped that our baby would come during an in-port maintenance period prior to the patrol, so that I would be with her when our daughter came. But that didn’t happen, and Betania was born after my boat was two weeks into its patrol. That was a long, long first deployment for me. I didn’t get to see my new baby for 3 months.
It was the late ‘80’s and I felt the need to learn computers, since the 386 processor and a 2400 baud rate modem were the latest things hitting the market. I looked in the Yellow Pages and called Advanced Digital Systems. A kindly, soft spoken man accepted my offer to work for nothing so that I could learn from him. Tobin had had cancer and now ate whole grains and whole foods in order to fight it; his wife made him freshly cooked rice and beans for his lunch every day. His simple food reminded me of my past vegan diet, and I encouraged him in its healthfulness.
He gave me his testimony and told me how he used to be the typical educated atheist, and living the good life. But one night a big storm blew in while he was on his little motorized sailboat off the coast, with his wife and baby son onboard. They lost control because the seas got so tempestuous. He had locked the hatch, but the waves were crashing over his little craft, and they almost capsized many times. That scrape with death struck his fearlessness, shook him out of his foolishness, and dashed his pride on the rocks. He was a Christian now. I could see the humility in him and it pulled on my heart. But I didn’t let on that I had been in a similar condition of faith that he was.
A minute, subliminal seed of faith was being rekindled in me because of his genuineness and gentleness, though, and would soon enough germinate and bring forth life. I will love to meet Tobin again some day in the courts of heaven and thank him.
posted by David | 11:02 AM
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