BY GROVER WILCOX AS TOLD TO ROLAND R. HEGSTAD

liked the feel of sand between my toes, especially early in the morning before the sun warmed the beach. But what 4-year-old wouldn't? It was mine, all mine. Of course, I didn't know that it was Long Beach, and that on a summer day a thousand other children would also claim it.

Waves seemed strangely gentle, and the sun's rays caressed me as they peeked over the horizon. The morning gulls swept overhead, sliding on unseen currents. To my untutored eyes they seemed held aloft by unseen hands-perhaps those of someone or something called "God."

At the margin of the gentle waters I could see the homes of unseen little creatures, tiny bubbles marking their presence. Occasionally a crab would scuttle across in front of me, and I would curl my toes protectively. It wouldn't do to cry out and shatter the silence. Strangely, even then I observed that silence has a sound. It hovers at the verge of consciousness, a muted something that vanishes if you concentrate on it.

In the years since, as I've retraced my childhood steps, I've heard the waves roar as they attack the beach and gulls lecture their fellows and humans alike with raucous abandon. Freeway traffic plays its basso profundo background, and children chitter and chatter the lyrics of summertime. Strange it is that the once-silent beach has become a babel; strange too that a silent child now dares to disturb the sound of silence.

Those who have heard my story find it incredible. "It couldn't have happened," they say. "Your parents must have spoken to you sometime. Don't you just mean that they never said they loved you?"

No. They never spoke to me. The only sound I heard was the sound of silence. It became my refuge . . . a refuge for Nobody's Boy.¹

The Darker Side
I was a child of nowhere and everywhere, for we-my family-were street people during my childhood and teenage years. We lived in tents on a California beach, along railroad tracks near Riverside, in cow pastures and deserted shacks, campgrounds along the roads to Arrowhead and Big Bear lakes, a log cabin with a dirt floor, and scores of houses where we never paid rent and usually disappeared by night.

By the time I was 11 years old we had moved more than 100 times. My father never worked a steady job, nor did my mother. We children-seven of us, of whom I was the next-to-youngest-learned to survive from farmers' orchards and vegetable fields, supplemented by begging from relatives and strangers alike. We often went days without a meal.

There was an even darker side: Our houses, if they can be called that, were dark places of abuse-physical, emotional, and sexual. Tension and fear hung like black clouds over our days as we children watched fearfully for telltale signs of violent eruptions. During my childhood years my parents choked and beat me, resulting in my attempts to escape deep within myself. I became the invisible child, never speaking to an adult. I never heard the words "I love you," never knew the security of a hug.

My parents were Seventh-day Adventists. Church members. Professing to know the Lord; talking heaven but living hell. I remember my father's selling subscription study Bibles to church members on Long Island in New York. They never received one. When I was 7 years old, my mother went to prison and my father abandoned us. We children lived for a few weeks by begging door to door, stealing from grocery stores, even eating chicken feed from a nearby barn.

One midnight police broke into the shack where we were living and took all seven of us to the Riverside Juvenile Hall. During the year we were confined, we would look through the barred windows and over the barbed-wire fence to see well-dressed children going to school and playing during recess and noon hour. A year later our parents claimed us, and it was back to the nomadic existence that had been our lot from birth.

Recite the scenario above to a psychiatrist, and you'll be told that I surely grew up hating my parents-and my heavenly Parent as well. That I've likely been in jail and, at the very least am a rebel who cannot stand authority figures-including God. Dr. Alane Samarza, of Redlands, California, has spoken of the lasting psychological damage to be expected from such an abusive childhood. "The early experiences of maltreatment, abuse, and neglect," she says, "may result in depression, fears and anxieties, and problems in relationships-including distrust and intimacy dysfunctions-
and poor self-esteem." She couldn't have described us children better if she had written our case histories.

A Soldier's Armor
In 1965 I was drafted into the United States Army, a fate that thousands of young men would gladly have foregone. For me it was emancipation. At worst, the Fort Polk (Louisiana) first sergeant's barking at me came in a poor second to my father's brutality. At Polk and later at Fort Sam Houston, where I took my noncombatant training, I found the camaraderie in the ranks a refreshing contrast to my parental relationships. The years of abuse had left me carrying an impressive load of defensive armor. I wandered through my Army years carrying a huge load of shame, guilt, pain, and fear. Still, I worked diligently at becoming a good soldier and for the first time in my life heard words of praise. But as good a fix as these were, they could not fill my hollowness or erase my depression.

At times, lying on my bunk, I'd ponder the universe, with its distant and unfeeling stars. Was there really a God, as I had heard on our family's occasional excursions to Sabbath school and church? Somehow I believed there was. But He wasn't my Father and He didn't care about me. However, I sometimes threw a silent prayer heavenward and clutched at a tenuous thread of faith. To my surprise, it grew into a rope that bound me to all-but-forgotten truths.

After the Army I went to college on the GI Bill. And wonder of wonders, I became a teacher and principal in the Adventist school system. Whether in my office or classroom, I sought to create and share the kind of security and unconditional love I had never experienced at home. But deep inside, in the center of my soul, I felt empty and alone. Gradually I lost my grip on the rope. I compensated by becoming a workaholic, desperately seeking to bury the burden of my past.

One day, 20 years into my teaching career, the Great King called a few select angels together. It was time, in His grand design, to shatter the armor in which I had encased the tortured soul of my childhood. It was to be a dangerous task, He knew, and He issued careful instructions. The soul within must be quickly enveloped by loving arms-His arms, He said; this delicate act He would handle Himself.

The blow was struck; the armor shattered. Madly the boy within clutched for his armor. "Let go, My child," the King said gently, "for I cannot reach you otherwise." The boy within cried back, "I can't! I can't! You're killing me!"

The Verdict
My armor was shattered in May 1996. I became deathly ill and was checked in to Denver Presbyterian Hospital (now Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center), followed in a few weeks by a stay in Porter Adventist Hospital. In both, doctors listened to my lungs, looked at the huge boils that had broken out on my body, and took X-rays. I had severe joint pain, developed pneumonia, could hardly breathe, and was hallucinating. I thought things couldn't get worse. They did.

Four doctors circled my bed and put X-rays up to the light. "You have huge tumors in your lungs," one said. "We're going to have to remove your right lung." But they didn't-probably because they felt my condition was terminal.

For two months I languished in the Colorado hospitals, still without a definitive diagnosis. When all seemed lost, my wife, Charby, borrowed enough money to fly me to Loma Linda University Medical Center in California. I said goodbye to her and our two daughters, Sabrina and Melanie, thinking that I would never see them again.

Another team of doctors ran scores of tests, grew cultures, and saw me lose 50 pounds and much of my blood. Eventually my kidneys began to fail. The doctors were agreed on only one finding: I was dying. A few days later they came up with the why: I had Wegener's granulomatosis.² There was no cure.

The Song of the King
During long sleepless nights, still reeling from His blows, I began to talk to the King. "Is this my reward for 20 years of faithful service?" I asked. "Are You abandoning me to a lingering death?" For the first time in my life I listened for His answer. And it came. No. He was about to teach me His song.

I left the hospital the first week of July. As I pushed through the heavy glass doors I paused, leaned against the wall, and, with tears streaming down my face, sobbed, "I'm alive! I'm alive!" But the doctors said it would not be for long.

I returned to my Colorado academy classroom. Each morning I'd walk the short distance from home to school, pausing at the park to vomit. Weakness and nausea dogged my every step. I carried on until the doctors told me that if I continued, I would be carried out-to the cemetery. I bade my colleagues and students goodbye and headed back to Loma Linda. For seven years now (thank You, Father!) I have amazed my doctors as I daily drink chemo-to date, more than 600,000 milligrams-(not to mention N bags and other drugs inserted or ingested).

In a small and aged motor home parked at the eastern edge of Loma Linda, the King continues my music lessons. Strange that trials and pain either turn one away from God, in cold, lonely bitterness, or toward Him. As a child I had first experienced emptiness, and I wanted no more of that. But confronted with daily pain and hopelessness, I wondered whether I could continue to let Him grow me into His child. That would mean, I knew, unfailing trust and allegiance. Could my life become a home where He could visit and His heart could glow during our time together?

Slowly I turned my face from the searing certainty of imminent death to God's great and gentle face. And there-often late at night in the stark quiet of my soul-I thrilled to his assurance: I was His boy. From nobody's boy to His boy! The peace and joy that flooded me defy explanation.

The Healers
I have not been alone in my quest for a Father. There is Dr. Steven C. Stewart, who stood by my side through a year and a half of injections, pain, bruising, and eventual surgery. Next came Brian Hopwood, a man in a wheelchair who had survived a small plane crash. He stood by me during my wife's three breast cancer surgeries. His wife was in the intensive-care unit for a year with liver cancer. Many were the nights we stood in the hospital parking lot at Loma Linda, and beneath the halo of street lamps talked to our Father, the King of the universe. Then one day at the hospital in walked the king of care-Don Schneider. I will never forget him wrapping his arms around me and assuring me that I am a favored son of the King of kings.

Then there is Garry Sudds, associate superintendent of the Lake Union Conference, who first called me "God's Boy." I call him by his middle name, Jack, but if ever I have met a fellow human who warrants the name God's Boy, it is he. He gently turned my face toward my heavenly home and my divine Daddy, forever changing my life.

I studied these healers. I saw the King in their eyes. Ellen White described their ministry: "There are souls perplexed with doubt, burdened with infirmities, weak in faith, and unable to grasp the Unseen; but a friend whom they can see, coming to them in Christ's stead, can be a connecting link to fasten their trembling faith upon Christ" (The Desire of Ages, p. 297). That's what my Father did for me. At a time when I had learned only the first stanza of His song, He sent some of His other children to share with me their faith.

Often it was, however, that I again became the fearful little boy who had known only abuse and abandonment. He stood by the chain-link fence at Juvenile Hall, his grubby hands clutching the wires as he looked at the distant fields and questioned, Does anyone love me? Does anyone care? Does anyone even know where I am? And a tear would slip down the cheek of the little boy with the shock of black hair and dark, hollow eyes.

But ever there would be those to remind me that I do have a Father who loves me. I am God's boy! In the bleakness of fearsome and painful nights He slips into my motor home to comfort me. There may be more surgeries, more crises, but no matter what, my Father knows what He's doing. The worse my situation, the closer I cling to Him. When His eyes sweep the earth and He asks, "Who will stand with Me? Who will never let go of My hand no matter what?" I grasp His hand tighter and watch His heart soar!

Learning to Trust
What a transformation! The King is teaching trust to a soul who had never trusted anyone. Ask Him for healing? How can I? The wrong answer-or worse, no answer-could send me back down that deadly trail of rejection and abandonment. Better never to ask. When black and blue from injections, I simply look heavenward and say, "I love You, I love You." When sick and vomiting from the daily chemo, I turn my face toward heaven and say, "It's all right, Father; You're in charge. Do what You know is best for me."

It isn't that I suddenly acquired a good or brave attitude. No, it is the love I feel that now lets me see things through my Father's eyes. I look at things in terms of how they'll affect Him. Will I hurt Him or honor Him? Will my attitude give Him joy? Will it give Him glory?

So it was that we became friends. I became His son, and now I am His boy. I long to be with him-my God, my Father, my Daddy! The joy of visiting Him thrills my soul. Trust is a badge of honor now. No longer do I think of fellowship with Him in terms of laws and rules-even obedience. These are not the real keys to fellowship. Rather the key is oneness with my Father, and with that comes blessed assurance. No matter the problem, it must first pass through the hands of my Daddy.

The Heart of the Matter
The other day, while in a grocery store, I saw a scene that says it all. As I pushed my cart up to the checkout line I noticed a tiny boy sitting in the one behind me. His father, a large, husky man, picked him up, and the tot tried to hug him, but his arms reached only a little way around. I heard his father ask, "Do you hear it? Can you hear it?" The child pressed closer, trying to hear his father's heartbeat.

Just that closely are we privileged to clutch our heavenly Father! As Ellen White put it: "Let your heart break for the longing it has for God, for the living God" (Christ's Object Lessons, p. 149).

It was with my ear against His heart that I stopped asking the painful questions: "Why are You doing this to me, God? Why do I have to be the one?"

Instead, I now ask, "Father, what can I do for You? What appointments have You made for me today? I await Your loving wish, Father."

I often talk to Him about my brothers and sisters. Sadly, psychologist Alane Samarza's list of likely consequences of physical, mental, and sexual abuse are all too apt a description. I cannot bring myself to reveal their histories. I thank my Father for the good I see; only He knows how bitterly fought the battles, how sad the defeats, how glorious the victories! Perhaps I'll not know the impact of my prayers until my Father welcomes me to His throne room. No matter: I trust Him, and I know that He loves my brothers and sisters even more than I do. And that kind of love is hard to resist.

A Message From My Father
As I write this I own little more than the clothes on my back. Lost are my career as a respected and loved teacher, my home, my friends, my money, my belongings, my health, and, almost, my life. Doctors tell me now that the ravages of chemotherapy make it imperative that I get a kidney transplant. I know that many more patients need kidneys than the supply can meet. I shall meet this crisis as I have the scores of others: by putting it in my Father's hands.

There is another sadness with which I live. I have lost my wife, who could not, as I did, understand and love a God who would, as she saw it, "do such things" to me. The last night we spent together, I lay beside her and prayed for God to intercede. Oh, the darkness of those hours! The stark intensity of my pleading!

Toward morning I had my answer. My heavenly Father confided in me. His message was simple: "I'm not having any more success with her than you are." Sad as I was, I was satisfied. God had done, and would do, all He could. He would not, however, force allegiance. She had made her decision.

She calls once in a while to ask how I am. I'm lonely, of course. But my Father has a plan. With no place to go, with no one to impress, I spend my days picturing Him in His throne room. Conversing with Him. Trusting Him. Loving Him. After all, I'm His boy! Maybe my wife will become His girl again, and we'll put our arms around each other and praise our Daddy together.

_________________________
¹ This introduction is condensed from the book Nobody's Boy, soon to be published.
² Wegener's granulomatosis is not hereditary; it can strike anyone. In 1996, when I became ill, only one in 750,000 Americans had the disease. Medical books say that it is "fatal within months." Often patients live only weeks.

_________________________
Grover Wilcox is a pseudonym. Roland R. Hegstad is former editor of Liberty magazine, now writing for and editing Perspective Digest.