Electrocution

I’m glad light bulbs can’t feel, because I know what they’d feel like when they get turned on.

And I’d have to think twice before touching the switch

I was taking the Air Force Electronics Coarse in Biloxi. Our lesson that morning included a device consisting of an eight inch square, three inch high aluminum box with two closely spaced rods extending outward through a hole in the side.

Mine wasn’t working. Looking at it, I could see why. The rods were slightly twisted, so that one was shorted against the box.

That’s easy to fix, I thought. Ill just straighten them out.

Holding the box in one hand and the lines in the other I gave them a strong twist. Inside the box, which was still plugged in, one of the lines contacted an eight hundred volt power terminal. I instantly discovered the inhumanity of electrocution. The savage grip of electricity surged mercilessly through my torso. Every muscle wrenched tight. My lungs emptied in a loud blast of deep throated noise as my vocal cords pulled against the discharge. Everyone in the three story building came running.

My legs straightened, I lurched backward., and my hands contracted with enough force to crush the box and bend the lines together.

Fortunately the cord was short and came out of the wall as I went back. That, I thought has got to be the most intense and awful sensation a human could feel.

Awful, yes; intense, no. Years later, after I had given up atheism I experienced the same sensation, which if light bulbs could feel I’d be turning them on at every opportunity.

Have you ever hungered to know God, to be his companion, to be able to tuck your hand into his as a child reaches for its parent’s hand? That’s how I had been feeling. I was like a lover deprived, a wanderer in a great desert, thirsting an unspeakable thirst.

All the day long and for a time before, I had been longing for Him, searching the alcoves and catacombs of my emptiness for some clue, not knowing where or how to look, an imperfect son desiring his perfect father.

That’s how I fell asleep.

I was walking the streets of a town I’d never seen before. Narrow streets wandered in gentile curves, intersecting at distances of an average block.. But because of the curves , one could not see one intersection from the next. I had been thrust into a section walled with buildings of from four to ten stories These were painted in bright pastels of warm colors. Along the side walks were set the picture windows of shops, mostly small, as if family-owned. There were no fancy facades. The sky was bright with the early afternoon blue. Generally, the scene was cheerful.

But I was lost.

I walked those streets for hours, going from shop to shop, asking clerks and owners where I might find God. I was becoming desperate, like a lost child, trying to find a parent from whom he’d become separated. I may have stepped through a hundred doors and peeked through fifty windows. No one knew where He could be found, although most had heard of Him.

Eventually the colors of the shops began to fade in the waning afternoon light. The clouds took a yellow cast to their western faces, signifying the soon approaching sunset. The dark spell of discouragement now settled in the shadows.

The streets had emptied and I was alone.

The human soul hopes where there is none. I continued to look, to find at least one more person to talk to. I recall the joy of finding a little restaurant open. And I remember being crushed hearing, “He’s been in here but I have no idea where you might find him now.” So, I left and continued walking past closed shops, mostly because there was nothing else to do.

There were doors between some of the shops. I may as well try some of them, perhaps they are the entrance to hotels. There were windows above the shops, and these doors have got to lead somewhere. So, I tried one. It opened and I was looking into a living room full of people. The were quite friendly and I was quite embarrassed. But they didn’t know where God might be at that hour.

Coming upon a kelly green door, I stopped. Should I open it or not, I asked myself. It’s probably somebody’s private residence, I thought. Hope and desperation grasped that knob. I slowly swung the door inward, and peeked around the edge.

To my surprise, I wasn’t looking into someone’s living room, I was staring at another door at the end of a long hallway.

Quietly, I walked to the end of the hall and stood, looking at the door. Waiting for the courage to open it. The first thing you have to do to open a door is to get hold of the knob. No danger doing that. Then you have to turn that knob. And, if you do it quietly, the risk is very slight. It was pushing the door that would be tough. Standing there with people looking at me, an intruder, would be the miserable part. How could I explain?

I didn’t have to. I was standing in the entrance of a beautiful fully-tiled inner courtyard. I stepped forward, stopped and looked around. The courtyard was pentagonal, about sixty feet across. (Five is the number of grace, by the way) The center also pentagonal pattern, laid in white tile, about five feet across. Above, a balcony surrounded the courtyard.

As I walked to the center, I turned round and round. My eyes were drawn upward to tier upon tier of identical balconies, all railed and framed with lace-like ornamental iron. There were at least ten stories of these balconies.

Stepping into the center, I looked to the patch of sunset blue above, and cried out “God, where are you?”

Instantly from that patch of sky a brilliant shaft of silver light shown around me. Its intensity grew until it was shining right through me. And as it intensified, I felt that same electric sensation I had felt years ago. This time it was incredibly pleasant, like liquid love and joy, and it permeated my entire body and mind. I began to rise upward in that beam of life and glory.

As I rose I gave a shout of joy that sounded like my previous sound of distress.

“Wake up! Wake up! Jack, what’s wrong?” My wife was shaking me.

If you are still concerned about the pentagonal court and balconies, let me assure you that God was using the number five long before the occultists decided to adulterate everything holy. In the Bible, the number five is always associated with grace.

When I was a young man, I searched for truth in an endless maze of philosophies and cults When there seemed no where else to look I entered a door nearly certain that it would be useless and possibly embarrassing. It was a desperate act, like when I first picked up the Bible.

The long hallway may have represented reading until making the decision for Christ, and entering into the Grace of God, the courtyard. Christianity was many tiers, far more interesting and detailed than I could have expected— a real wonder. Its loftiness and beauty certainly exceeded anything I had seen from the outside.

Entering into His Grace, he then displayed the might and significance of His salvation and love. It was far more intense than anything I could have or imagined. The electrocution before, was death. This was life and love and joy.

God had displayed to me the importance of my search and commitment, but mostly the brightness and shear power of his love. Because I was awakened, I will not know the true extent until I am taken up to stay.

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