Screams in a Sybaritic Void

I was a Sybarite. And God had to drive Sybaris out of me, far from where I could ever find it or even think of it again. If this wayward sheep were ever to be like Christ, heaven could be my only home, my only goal.

Sybaris was an ancient city whose inhabitants lived for pleasure. Pleasures of body and soul, but not of mind or spirit, both of which lulled and withered the city's inhabitants into destruction.

From childhood I sought the pleasure of the outdoors, day and night. I treasured its beauty; the varied scents, sounds and wildlife made me feel alive. As a grade school-er Bambi was my hero. School bullies drove me further away from human aspirations. In my childish heart I was bitterly disappointed when I finally realized I could never grow up to be a horse or dog or cat. Although we lived on an estate, it was someone else's property; my dad was the owner's landscaper and I often played alone in the woods while he worked elswhere on the vast land.

We moved to a small city in upstate New York when I was about 8 or 9. The woods and my childhood fantasies were quickly replaced by an emotional survival mode in a tiny apartment surrounded by concrete and human cliques. Indoors I felt stifled. Frustrated, I ate. Comfort foods. The fattening kind - ice cream, candy, cookies, pudding... What comforted my taste buds tormented my soul. By age 15 I became an overweight, zit-ridden outcast.

Becoming ever more self-indulgent in order to stem lonliness and avoid reality, I retreated into a daydream world where every desire was met and no one hated me. I loathed real human-beings as enemies trying to invade my "Sybaris." This time, I vowed, my Sybaris would not fall. My walls would be too strong and too high for any to breach. Rather than isolation, I saw this as a reasonable way to stay sane. The real world hated "ugly-faced fatsos," so keeping an emotional distance was best for all, I reasoned.

But God broke in. Suddenly. A picture of Jesus in our family Bible, arms outstretched with the eyes that follow you around the room, beckoned. And the people in that picture! All kinds, rich, poor, young, old and in-between, healthy, sick, walking, crawling, laying there with a weak hand extended to the only One who could save - Christ Jesus.

And my soul heard Him - "C'mon! You can do it!"

Yes, I could come to Him now! I could do it, being strengthened by Christ Himself as He called me. (Philippians 4:13) I didn't realize I was among those in the picture. I didn't even see myself as human, really, but I was. And as such, a sinner in need of saving.

"Ok, Jesus," I said, "I'll come to You, but I'm not going near God 'cause I know He's mad at me!" And that is salvation in a nutshell; "No one comes to the Father but by Me," Jesus said in John's gospel. Thank God.

So, I came to Jesus, not realizing I had the Father and the Holy Spirit too, because not even Christians bothered with the fat and ugly. Nobody but God, that is. The God who saw the precious diamond in all that rough, treasured me, even at my ugliest. As a sixteen-year-old satanist I had cursed God out in ignorance, yet He stooped down to save me, the ugliest and worst of sinners, inside and out.

Don't tell me God isn't merciful, long suffering and compassionate! Praise the Lord, O, my soul! Amen!

But without anyone to disciple me I still was a black coal coated diamond. I'd tossed all the occult items, including a satanic bible, in the trash, but still went out drinking myself drunk with friends, listened to music that promoted things God does not approve of for His children and other things I've long since put away. I was still in Sybaris' outskirts.

At 21 I'd managed to lose just enough weight to be accepted into the United States Air Force as a "chunky chicken." Ten pounds to go, but allowed in. I enlisted as an airman basic and flew out to Lackland Air Force Base. About four weeks into basic training out T.I. called me to the front of our flight one sunny day. I had lost about ten pounds and now I was told I had just lost my Dad. He died suddenly from a burst aneurysm in his brain. Having lost my Mom a little over two years earlier, I was now a 21-year-old orphan. But not in God's eyes. He was my eternal Father. Only I had no way of knowing this since no one had discipled me. Nor did they know I was born-again. How could they? I didn't know it myself. I only knew that I had turned to a picture of Jesus in our family Bible a few years earlier and He spoke to my soul. So I was called by God, but unaware of being chosen by Him.

After attending my Dad's funeral, I coped at the following dinner by getting drunk and hijacking my 7-year-old niece's sit-'n-spin. I think she was afraid I would break it. If only I knew I could've drunk deeply of God's comfort by reading Hid Word & receiving the Comforter's love. After three days I returned to finish basic training with my flight. One of my fellow trainees remarked that I must not have loved my father very much or I wouldn't be there. That made me angry. I shouted that my Dad would've wanted me to finish with my flight and would've been disappointed and even angry if I hadn't done so. That shut her up and no one said anything more about it.

Later, near the end of basic training on the confidence course, I encouraged an Airman who said she couldn't go forward or back on one of the water obstacles. Eventually I told her "Look! Either go on or drop!" I was losing my grip on the rope suspended horizontally above the clear pool and hanging upside down for so long caused a tiny bit of my breakfast to come back into my throat. No thank you. She dropped into the water while I shimmied along the rope to the other side. I try to encourage, but I'm no masochist. Ironically in the next few years I would slam dance myself silly to numb the pain of losing both my parents. But we'll get to that later...

It was one of the easiest obstacles that got me. I had simply forgotten how to step through the tires and crumples to the side. "I can't go on. I can't go on," I moaned breathlessly. My Dad's death had finally sunk in. The T.I. at this obstacle tried to encourage me. "C'mon! Get up! You can do it!" Where had I heard that before? "Aah!" he said with a resigned and frustrated sigh. Tough as the T.I's were, they were really pulling for us. Then, just as he was marking that I missed this obstacle, another trainee danced her way through the tires. I turned my head as I laid there and watched her feet carefully. "oh," I said. I got up and danced my way through the once daunting obstacle.
There ya go!" The relieved T.I. shouted as he changed my mark to passing.

And getting 18 out of 20 obstacles, I passed Basic Training and graduated with my flight to become one of many Airmen Basic. My heavenly Father saw His precious diamond in the rough shine brightly that day.