My story with God, Pt. 5
Finally, in the middle of a 6-month Mediterranean Sea deployment, I had all I could take of the hatefulness that happens to people who are away from their loved ones. We pulled in to a port and I phoned home. I needed love more than anything and to hear that my children on the other end of the line were happy. But, when I called, all I got was an earful of anger and frustration from Zeny and our daughter, and crying and disturbed sadness from my son, the only people I loved in the whole world. I tried to calm everybody down and I told them I loved them, but there was just anger and fighting between my wife and little daughter, and a sad son half pleading for me to come home and half resigned to the impossibility of it. All I wanted was an, I understand why you’re gone, Hon. We’re all happy here, David. We love you, Dad. Instead what I understood was, This is all your fault!
I said my goodbyes and went back to my rack totally distressed and despairing. No one in the world loved me and my children were troubled. I couldn’t stand my life anymore. Maybe I haven't described well enough the grueling life on a submarine combined with the difficulties of a failing marriage and a longing to be loved, and maybe it sounds petty to the reader, but I began to think of suicide. Suicide. How would I do it? I didn’t know, but I knew ideas would come. But a few thoughts into that idea, and I remembered some close friends whose father had killed himself. I saw the sadness and depression they battled from that day to the present. I saw my young Joe and Betania suffering for the rest of their lives. That woke me up from those ideations. I never thought about it again. I would just have to bear up under the loneliness and sadness, and survive the present conditions. That was certainly the lowest point in my whole life. I believe the Lord got me through it. “Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.When I said, My foot slippeth; Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.” (Ps. 94:17,18).
We pulled in to Haifa, Israel. The next day, a mini-van drove up to those of us on the pier, and out hopped a slender fellow in cammies. He invited those who wanted to come up to a kibbutz where he lived so we could learn how they work and live. A dozen or so of us accepted the invitation and he drove us east past the Sea of Galilee and then turned north. His kibbutz lay at the very northern point of Israel, right across from the Golan Heights. After an interesting tour of the compound, they split us up and each American went to an Israeli family to learn more about the lifestyle there. I went to the home of Peter and Karen Isacovitz and their three kids. They were so calm and nice and the kibbutz was so orderly and isolated, with its own closed-community issues, that it kept reminding me of the Adventist self-supporting school I had gone to. Once more, I was reminded of my past experiences with the SDA denomination. But all these memories of my Adventist past I just kept filing away in the Not-Interested section.
Yet again, another experience would remind me of a better land than this old, corrupted world. Our command organized a tour of Jerusalem. After the guided tour ended we had a little time to walk around the Jewish sector of the city by ourselves and later meet at the buses.
I was enjoying the antiquity and the Middle-Eastern flavor of the people as I walked through the cobble-stone streets. I came up on an open market with long lines of baskets full of fruits and vegetables, and the venders behind them. Just before passing one set of baskets, one of the venders needed to run and get something. He jumped over his basket, unintentionally knocking over his neighbor’s basket. Stuff went everywhere. He turned around to see what damage he had done, and his neighbor jumped up to him and grabbed him to fight. But just before a big scuffle began, the first man’s partner quickly jumped in between both of them, speaking earnestly in their language with an intesity of heart and soul that appeared to block out the crowds as the two intently listened to him.
I didn’t know what he said, but it calmed both of them down immediately and they both sorrowfully apologized and contentedly busied to pick up the merchandise together and get back to business. I was struck because I had been to many foreign ports over the past months, and never had seen this kind of brotherhood and meekness. More deeply impressing my mind was the difference between those three and the competition and self-serving attitude of Americans.
It was a refreshing spectacle and brought me some good peace of mind. Brotherly love did exist; it wasn’t just an imaginary hope. A yearning came to mind for a world of that kind of love.
Finally, the Med cruise came to an end, and my whole fast attack submarine tour was coming to a close. A rare job opportunity came to me. My chief, who truly disliked me personally, surprised me by doing me a big favor. An office of Submarine School needed sonar techs and he recommended me to them. It sounded like a good shore duty job and I got accepted. But when I gave the good news to Zeny she got angry because it would require moving to Connecticut. Move again?! She said that all I ever did was think of myself. She had moved so many times because of my transfers in the military already, and now she refused to leave Norfolk. I had committed my life to ships and the sea for seven years with a one year break. I missed my children and they missed and needed me. I was tasting how good it was going to be, but now I still couldn’t be with them.
This was yet another new trouble. I had already accepted the orders and could have turned them back in, but that could have left me open to worse orders, possibly transferring to Hawaii without my family. So I decided to take the relocating orders and planned to drive back every 3rd weekend, a 10 hour trip each way.
Just before transferring off of the boat, an old friend sat me down one day in the crew’s eating space and persuaded me to go in on a financial venture with him. Todd had bought many dilapidated houses and was fixing them up to rent for income after leaving the Navy. I used to be a carpenter, so it would be easy for me to do. I always wanted to start making extra money, and also have a thriving business after leaving the Navy. He told me to buy a cheap HUD home and then borrow $20,000 against it, pay off my car and use the rest to fix the house, and have a tax shelter at the same time. It sounded like a dream come true. Even though another friend who worked with Todd warned me against doing anything with this new-found business manager, I was sold on him. We both talked an uneasy Zeny into the idea, and soon I was borrowing $20,000 against an HUD fixer-upper we found for $45,000.
One problem after another developed with that house. I was in Connecticut and couldn’t handle the problems personally, but Todd promised to take care of me. However, Todd was too busy with his houses to really help me. His “help” turned into the worst nightmare. Next thing I knew, Zeny was talking to me on the phone scared to death, saying that the city and electric company were taking us to court for stealing electricity. Todd had jumpered the electric meter on the house and found a lady who would rent the house with free electricity. This was allowable for short term circumstances only, while working on the house. But no work got done on the house because Todd was so busy with his. Finally, a city inspector came knocking on the door. Now we were in trouble!
We got that resolved with much distress and heartache, and Todd found another tenant. This young mother and her two little children never planned to live there; she was only a ruse for her two drug-dealing friends to turn the place into a crack house. After five months we had received no rent money from them, and heard constant complaints from the neighbors we had come to know, complaints of them urinating and throwing things out of the windows, and shooting a pistol in the air in the middle of the night. And the local police did nothing to arrest them. On the last day of their eviction notice, they finally ran away, but not without first plugging the upstairs bathtub and sinks and turning the faucets on. Many hours later, Zeny came in to inspect the house, only to see that water had been falling from the ceiling above.
I was paying on a $20,000 home equity loan, a $45,000 mortgage, a $10,000 land payment, a $300/month apartment for Zeny and the kids, and a $13,000 car loan because I had been afraid to use the equity loan. We had $10,000 in reserve which was being drained quickly with all the debts on my one small income, and soon we would have to forfeit everything. I had lost my sea pay when I transferred to shore duty and my pay checks would not afford the heavy financial burden after the last of the $10,000 was gone.
The day I had arrived to my job in the Submarine School, I was eating supper and looked up just as an old friend from my first submarine was leaving. We were very glad to see each other. Mark had a few more months before finishing up his training as a student there. We started doing a lot of things together and got closer than when we had been on the boat.
One day, we hiked a path in a state park called, Devil’s Hopyard. Afterward, we needed to rest and were both lying down on some grass looking up at the passing fluffy clouds. I forced myself to voice a little thought that had been nagging me for a while—would I ever go back to God? He seemed so distant now. It didn’t seem possible to get all the way back to God and be able to relive the good times I had had in my younger days. Mark told me he wondered about that too for himself. Would God take us back? Would He help me get back to Him? That day we opened the door to God and forgot to shut it. It was faith, again. Prenatal, but still faith, and a “go” sign for heaven.
I said my goodbyes and went back to my rack totally distressed and despairing. No one in the world loved me and my children were troubled. I couldn’t stand my life anymore. Maybe I haven't described well enough the grueling life on a submarine combined with the difficulties of a failing marriage and a longing to be loved, and maybe it sounds petty to the reader, but I began to think of suicide. Suicide. How would I do it? I didn’t know, but I knew ideas would come. But a few thoughts into that idea, and I remembered some close friends whose father had killed himself. I saw the sadness and depression they battled from that day to the present. I saw my young Joe and Betania suffering for the rest of their lives. That woke me up from those ideations. I never thought about it again. I would just have to bear up under the loneliness and sadness, and survive the present conditions. That was certainly the lowest point in my whole life. I believe the Lord got me through it. “Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.When I said, My foot slippeth; Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.” (Ps. 94:17,18).
We pulled in to Haifa, Israel. The next day, a mini-van drove up to those of us on the pier, and out hopped a slender fellow in cammies. He invited those who wanted to come up to a kibbutz where he lived so we could learn how they work and live. A dozen or so of us accepted the invitation and he drove us east past the Sea of Galilee and then turned north. His kibbutz lay at the very northern point of Israel, right across from the Golan Heights. After an interesting tour of the compound, they split us up and each American went to an Israeli family to learn more about the lifestyle there. I went to the home of Peter and Karen Isacovitz and their three kids. They were so calm and nice and the kibbutz was so orderly and isolated, with its own closed-community issues, that it kept reminding me of the Adventist self-supporting school I had gone to. Once more, I was reminded of my past experiences with the SDA denomination. But all these memories of my Adventist past I just kept filing away in the Not-Interested section.
Yet again, another experience would remind me of a better land than this old, corrupted world. Our command organized a tour of Jerusalem. After the guided tour ended we had a little time to walk around the Jewish sector of the city by ourselves and later meet at the buses.
I was enjoying the antiquity and the Middle-Eastern flavor of the people as I walked through the cobble-stone streets. I came up on an open market with long lines of baskets full of fruits and vegetables, and the venders behind them. Just before passing one set of baskets, one of the venders needed to run and get something. He jumped over his basket, unintentionally knocking over his neighbor’s basket. Stuff went everywhere. He turned around to see what damage he had done, and his neighbor jumped up to him and grabbed him to fight. But just before a big scuffle began, the first man’s partner quickly jumped in between both of them, speaking earnestly in their language with an intesity of heart and soul that appeared to block out the crowds as the two intently listened to him.
I didn’t know what he said, but it calmed both of them down immediately and they both sorrowfully apologized and contentedly busied to pick up the merchandise together and get back to business. I was struck because I had been to many foreign ports over the past months, and never had seen this kind of brotherhood and meekness. More deeply impressing my mind was the difference between those three and the competition and self-serving attitude of Americans.
It was a refreshing spectacle and brought me some good peace of mind. Brotherly love did exist; it wasn’t just an imaginary hope. A yearning came to mind for a world of that kind of love.
Finally, the Med cruise came to an end, and my whole fast attack submarine tour was coming to a close. A rare job opportunity came to me. My chief, who truly disliked me personally, surprised me by doing me a big favor. An office of Submarine School needed sonar techs and he recommended me to them. It sounded like a good shore duty job and I got accepted. But when I gave the good news to Zeny she got angry because it would require moving to Connecticut. Move again?! She said that all I ever did was think of myself. She had moved so many times because of my transfers in the military already, and now she refused to leave Norfolk. I had committed my life to ships and the sea for seven years with a one year break. I missed my children and they missed and needed me. I was tasting how good it was going to be, but now I still couldn’t be with them.
This was yet another new trouble. I had already accepted the orders and could have turned them back in, but that could have left me open to worse orders, possibly transferring to Hawaii without my family. So I decided to take the relocating orders and planned to drive back every 3rd weekend, a 10 hour trip each way.
Just before transferring off of the boat, an old friend sat me down one day in the crew’s eating space and persuaded me to go in on a financial venture with him. Todd had bought many dilapidated houses and was fixing them up to rent for income after leaving the Navy. I used to be a carpenter, so it would be easy for me to do. I always wanted to start making extra money, and also have a thriving business after leaving the Navy. He told me to buy a cheap HUD home and then borrow $20,000 against it, pay off my car and use the rest to fix the house, and have a tax shelter at the same time. It sounded like a dream come true. Even though another friend who worked with Todd warned me against doing anything with this new-found business manager, I was sold on him. We both talked an uneasy Zeny into the idea, and soon I was borrowing $20,000 against an HUD fixer-upper we found for $45,000.
One problem after another developed with that house. I was in Connecticut and couldn’t handle the problems personally, but Todd promised to take care of me. However, Todd was too busy with his houses to really help me. His “help” turned into the worst nightmare. Next thing I knew, Zeny was talking to me on the phone scared to death, saying that the city and electric company were taking us to court for stealing electricity. Todd had jumpered the electric meter on the house and found a lady who would rent the house with free electricity. This was allowable for short term circumstances only, while working on the house. But no work got done on the house because Todd was so busy with his. Finally, a city inspector came knocking on the door. Now we were in trouble!
We got that resolved with much distress and heartache, and Todd found another tenant. This young mother and her two little children never planned to live there; she was only a ruse for her two drug-dealing friends to turn the place into a crack house. After five months we had received no rent money from them, and heard constant complaints from the neighbors we had come to know, complaints of them urinating and throwing things out of the windows, and shooting a pistol in the air in the middle of the night. And the local police did nothing to arrest them. On the last day of their eviction notice, they finally ran away, but not without first plugging the upstairs bathtub and sinks and turning the faucets on. Many hours later, Zeny came in to inspect the house, only to see that water had been falling from the ceiling above.
I was paying on a $20,000 home equity loan, a $45,000 mortgage, a $10,000 land payment, a $300/month apartment for Zeny and the kids, and a $13,000 car loan because I had been afraid to use the equity loan. We had $10,000 in reserve which was being drained quickly with all the debts on my one small income, and soon we would have to forfeit everything. I had lost my sea pay when I transferred to shore duty and my pay checks would not afford the heavy financial burden after the last of the $10,000 was gone.
The day I had arrived to my job in the Submarine School, I was eating supper and looked up just as an old friend from my first submarine was leaving. We were very glad to see each other. Mark had a few more months before finishing up his training as a student there. We started doing a lot of things together and got closer than when we had been on the boat.
One day, we hiked a path in a state park called, Devil’s Hopyard. Afterward, we needed to rest and were both lying down on some grass looking up at the passing fluffy clouds. I forced myself to voice a little thought that had been nagging me for a while—would I ever go back to God? He seemed so distant now. It didn’t seem possible to get all the way back to God and be able to relive the good times I had had in my younger days. Mark told me he wondered about that too for himself. Would God take us back? Would He help me get back to Him? That day we opened the door to God and forgot to shut it. It was faith, again. Prenatal, but still faith, and a “go” sign for heaven.
posted by David | 10:47 AM
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