Making Choices

I was 19 years old when I actually moved out of my parents’ home. It was my first year of college, and I was excited. I had a sense of freedom, and I wanted to experience everything this world had to offer. Soon after I arrived on campus, I ran into a group of Christian students who started to preach the gospel to me. At first, I listened to them politely, then argued with them and laughed at them, and eventually, I grew to hate them. I wasn’t interested in their message of salvation. It would definitely interfere with my life!

My roommates this first year turned out to be big drug dealers on campus. Before long, I was getting high along with them. When the drugs ran out, we turned to alcohol. By my second year in college, I had pretty much stopped going to classes. During Christmas vacation, instead of going home, I spent time with two friends who lived in the Chicago area. It was here that I got my first real job—and the pay was incredible. The three of us would drive from Chicago to Berkeley in a car full of illegal drugs. The contact in Berkeley would pay us, and then we’d drive back to Chicago with another trunk full of drugs. Once when we left Chicago in late January, the weather was 20 degrees below zero. When we got to sunny Berkeley, I decided to stay!

Life As A Vagabond

I settled in San Francisco in a commune belonging to Hassidic Jews. I am not Jewish and had never had much of any kind of religion in my life, but I found the Jewish lifestyle and form of worship very appealing. They sang, danced, and laughed a lot—and the house was always filled with food and the smell of freshly baked breads. There was a joy in the Lord that I had not experienced with Christians.

My time at Rabbi Carlbach’s house was good because it allowed me opportunity to indulge my passion for reading— having now acquired an interest in books of a spiritual nature. I read books on Buddhism and mysticism. I read all the works of Lao Tzu and books about the great Zen masters. I also read the Bagavad Gita. But after six months of living at the commune, I was ready to travel. A friend and I hitchhiked all over the West Coast from Seattle to Tijuana, spent time in the deserts of Arizona, and ended up back in the Bay Area. Everywhere we went, it seemed we would run into a group of Christians who wanted to give us the gospel. In truth, they were always helpful and kind, but my hatred of them grew with every encounter.

During this time, though I wasn’t aware of it, I had a spiritual desire for God. But I wanted a god who would not interfere with my life—one who would be there only when I wanted him. I began spending time with the Hari Krishna people in the Haight. All I had to do was bow before their idols, and they would feed me. I joined the Nicheren Soshu Buddhist society and hung out with people who could read and interpret Tarot cards. I also had friends who claimed to be witches. Once I met an Indian Guru who promised he could show me the face of God. I actually followed him all over the country for a whole year, from California to Florida to Colorado. When I finally left him, he had taken everything I owned, and I never did see God’s face.

I ended up on the streets, with no job and no place to live. For a while, I lived with a friend in his van, parking anywhere we could on the city streets. Miraculously, I was able to get a job with the U. S. Post Office and began earning a decent salary. I worked first at the post office in San Rafael and later transferred to the post office in Petaluma. Besides work, I plunged into the surreal lifestyle that San Francisco had to offer. Drugs, alcohol, and sex became a big part of my life. My life was totally hedonistic— I was enjoying new adventures, making new friends, and experiencing what the world had to offer.

Haunted By Fear

During these years, I put all thoughts about God out of my mind—I had given up on Him! Thank the Lord, He had not given up on me! Everything in my life was going fine until everything began to go wrong. I was working nights and began to feel tired all the time. I started losing weight and having difficulty breathing. I couldn’t even smoke half a cigarette. One night at work, I was so weak I couldn’t stand up, and friends rushed me to the emergency room.

The x-rays revealed that both my lungs were completely filled with fluid, and oxygen wasn’t getting to my cells. I had skin lesions on my body and white fungus growing inside my mouth. I had no control over my bowels, and my weight was down to 120 pounds. The doctors ran all kinds of tests on me. They took blood from my veins and my arteries. They took urine and stool samples. They made me cough into a cup. They put me in an isolation room with a tube in my nose pumping oxygen into my lungs, an IV in my arm to get fluids into my system, and all kinds of monitors telling them what my body was doing. My immune system was shot. My T-cell count was down to four.

When the doctor came in to talk to me, I knew there was something seriously wrong. Neither she nor anyone else thought that I was going to make it through the night. Suddenly I was confronted with the fact that I might die. Years before, I had watched my father die. He was very brave, never complained, and just accepted the end. I had been with my mother just the day before she died. She just went to sleep and never woke up. But now I was the one who might go. And I was terrified!

It wasn’t the thought of dying that scared me. It was the thought of where I was going to be after death. Somehow I had an unexplainable fear in knowing that if I were to die right then, it would not be a good thing. Something in me knew that life after death was going to be something so awful that I wanted to avoid death at all costs.

After a week in the hospital, the infection in my lungs started to clear up, and I slowly regained my weight and strength. But the horrible fear of dying did not leave me. I carried the fear of dying with me for the next 13 years, waking up at least once a week in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Unable to shake the feeling that something horribly frightening awaited me after death, I would lie awake for hours in a state of complete panic.

Facing Lies and Truth

But all this time the Lord was patiently waiting for me. He knew that I would not respond well if a Christian came to preach me the gospel. So He tried a different way—He gave me a Christian friend. In every conversation, somehow, my friend would mention that Jesus was his Lord and the Bible his guide for life. I didn’t want to pay attention, but I could not deny my friend’s love for the Lord.

One night, not being able to concentrate on the novel I was reading in bed, I went into the living room to look for something else to read. The book I picked off the shelf was a Bible—a book I had never actually spent time reading. I began reading in the Gospel of John.

I will never be able to fully explain what happened to me as I read the story of Jesus’ life. I felt like I was being stabbed in the heart with a very sharp sword. It was like a bomb exploding inside of me which left a large, gaping, empty hole. It was the second most frightening moment of my life. In one instant, I came to realize that everything I had ever believed, everything I had ever lived for had been a complete lie. There was no truth in my life.

Much of what I read about Jesus that night did not make a lot of sense. He associated with the wrong crowd of people. He said many things that made important religious leaders in His day very angry. He succeeded in making so many people angry with Him that at the young age of 33, He was killed and nailed to a cross. But there were two things I did understand. He did not stay dead, but after three days He conquered death and came back to life. I also understood that only in the person Jesus could I find answers that make sense in a world that, without Him, makes very little sense at all.

In my hunger to understand, I stayed up all night reading. By the time I put the book down, it was time to get ready for work. But before I did, I got on my knees, and for the first time in my life, I prayed. I did not pray for forgiveness of my sins. I did not pray for repentance. I did not pray for salvation. I did not pray for Jesus to come into my life. I did not pray for Jesus to be my Lord or my Savior. My prayer that morning was little more than a desperate cry for help.

When I got off my knees that morning, I knew nothing would ever be the same again. Yet for a few months, I tried to deny that anything had happened. I did not want to be a Christian. Hadn’t I laughed at them and hated them? I did not want to go to a church. But God never stopped working in my heart. Eventually, I realized that God had me in His grasp, and He would not let me go. All I could do was give up fighting, put my trust in Him, and thank the Lord for my salvation.

Resting in Hope

Accepting Christ brought about a whole attitude change for me. When I would hear other people cursing or using the name of God flippantly, I could feel the pain in my heart. I was no longer quick to criticize or judge others. I also felt an insatiable hunger to know God’s word and an urgency to share the gospel with others. Today my fear of death is gone. I know that nothing can separate me from my Lord. Thirty-five years ago, I first heard the gospel from Christian students on my college campus, and now I am finding comfort and hope in the promises our Lord has given. Every day begins and ends with a prayer of thanksgiving. I am thankful that “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise…. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

Huibert Ort works as a window clerk for the US Postal Service in Petaluma, CA. According to Huibert, being a Christian has not made his life easier, but it has made living any life so much more worthwhile.