A PLACE TO STAND
by Don Stevenson

I had settled in for the night, reading contentedly by lantern light when I heard my oldest daughter, Shannon, yell toward my tent, "Hey, Dad. Jada wants you to come and tell us a story." There was a wall of crisp Thanksgiving-night air between the warmth of my sleeping bag and a modest little campfire. Brrrr. I was tempted to stay in my sleeping bag and keep reading. On the other hand, my daughter was requesting one of my stories. My stories aren't the typical scary campfire type. Each one I consider to be a gift from the universe, and I feel obliged to share them.

I heard Jennifer's voice for the first time out by the fire. All three of my daughters were waiting to hear a story. If no other part of me, at least my heart was warmed.

"What story would you like to hear tonight?" I asked as I sat down on a length of log. "Tell the story about Harold Gause. Its my favorite," Jada said.

That is a good story, I thought. It's a lesson about deep, deep faith. Harold Gause, she called him. Truthfully, I didn't actually remember the name of the man who told me his story. I started calling him Harold Gause years ago to put a name on a face I can still see, with a tear rolling down his cheek. And I can't seem to tell the story without a tear rolling down mine.

"Ok, Jada. This is the story of how God gave Harold Gause a place to stand."

I met Mr. Gause while on a pilgrimage, a hitchhiking trip from Mississippi to Florida and back quite a few years ago. I was in my late twenties. I didn't need to hitchhike. I did it to exercise my faith. By hitchhiking I needed to rely on my faith in God rather than the mechanical soundness of my car or the skill of an airplane pilot. And God showed up in the people that came my way. Of course, my mother didn't think much of the idea of my thumbing rides.

I took off hitchhiking with ten dollars since I honestly couldn't muster the faith to leave absolutely penniless. Two weeks later my postcard home let my mother know that I hadn't missed a meal. Rides with interesting, wonderful people had come quickly. I had been gifted with money and food, and I had even been given a five-day stay in a private room at a Christian retreat center near Bradenton. Everything had been offered without my asking for a single handout. I had had high expectations...that's what faith is. But without realizing it, I had taken a bit of pride in my deep faith. God was about to send Harold Gause my way to give me some perspective on deep faith.

I was on my way back to Mississippi, standing on the roadside about 30 miles north of Clearwater, Florida. I had just finished my prayer of thanksgiving for my previous ride. I was penniless, but happy and hadn't gone hungry yet. I stuck my thumb up, and a Ford El Camino pulled off to the shoulder right away. I grabbed my backpack, ran up to the truck, and opened the door.

I made eye contact for a long split-second with a gray-haired, distinguished looking gentleman. His eyes were kind, and projected warmth.

"How far are you going?" he asked me.

"Mississippi."

"Well, son, I'm only going about 20 miles up the road, then I'll have to turn off. But I'll be glad to take you that far," he said.

I got in. He pulled back onto the highway.

"Wish I could take you farther," he said, "but I'm meeting my architect in less than an hour to check on the progress of a house that my wife and I are building. I haven't been up to the site in a couple of weeks. My wife just left for Israel for six months, so I'll probably be up there more often while she's gone." A feeling of awe swept over me. Of all the people to stop, God had sent a man whose wife I had helped to cloak with a prayer a few hours earlier.

I said, "Well, that's interesting. On my way through Clearwater this morning I stopped at a little church. The preacher led the congregation in a prayer for a lady who had just left for Israel to teach the New Testament. That was your wife, wasn't it?"

He chuckled. "Yes, that was my wife. I didn't make it to church this morning because of this trip. I'm glad the pastor remembered her in prayer. I miss her already. But God gave her a calling to serve over there in Israel right now, and my calling is to get this home finished."

"Is it your retirement home," I asked.

"Oh, no. It's not a home for us. Its going to be a group foster home for children. Its part of a promise I made to God a long time ago."

"What was that?"

"Well, I told the Lord that if He would spare my life, I would commit to serving Him for the rest of my days. He kept His end of the bargain, so I'm keeping mine."

"What happened?"

"Well, during World War Two, I was on the U.S.S. Independence. We went to Wake Island to drop off part of the atomic bomb that was later dropped on Hiroshima. The mission was so top secret that our cruiser made the trip alone. No escort. We were on our way back to Hawaii when a Japanese submarine sank us. There were about 1,200 men on board. About 900 made it into the water alive. A lot of us were injured. I was burned pretty bad.

"The ranking officer rallied us, grouped us in a circle, and led us in prayer. He told us not to worry. He said they'd start searching for us the next day after we didn't arrive in port, and that we'd be back in Hawaii the next afternoon. In fact, our ship wasn't even reported missing for five more days.

"By our third day in the water things had gotten pretty bad. We were all badly sunburned. Our life vests were waterlogged, and we were barely able to keep our chins above water. And the life vests had rubbed all the skin off our armpits from the constant bobbing up and down. Raw skin and saltwater sure don't mix very good. Men started swallowing seawater by accident or on purpose. We all knew better than to drink it, but after three days without water some of the men couldn't resist. Within half an hour they'd start hallucinating. Some of them thought the rest of us were Japanese soldiers about to kill them, and they swam off to get away from us. Or some would think they saw an island. They'd start swimming away. Nobody who swam off lived to tell about it. Sharks probably got most of them. Sharks had been biting men in our circle every now and again for three days. Mostly they'd just take a bite to see how we tasted, and spit it out. But a few men got pulled under water, and they were gone.

"Yeah, things got pretty bad. Turns out, the ranking officer, the one who led us in prayer the first day, couldn't take it anymore. He cracked. He started screaming and crying, 'We're all going to die. They're not going to find us.' Then I heard someone else yelling, 'No, we've got to keep the faith. They will find us if we keep our faith.' I was really shocked, because the one who was yelling for us to keep our faith was me. Then I led the men in a prayer.

"On the afternoon of the fourth day two delirious men got into a fist fight. I don't remember what it was about, but I tried to break it up, and swallowed quite a bit of seawater in the process. I knew what to expect. I asked a buddy to fasten a spare life vest on me backwards so I wouldn't be able to untie it. Sure enough, within half an hour I saw an island, and fought off everyone who tried to hold me back. I swam, and swam, and swam, and at some point I blacked out. The next thing I knew, it was morning. I wasn't hallucinating anymore, and there was no island in sight. There was absolutely nothing in sight. I was totally alone in the middle of the Pacific, exhausted. I'd had no food or water for four days. I was burned and raw. I was a dead man. I made God an offer. I told Him, 'Lord, if you will save my life I will serve you for the rest of my days.'"

Mr. Gause had been keeping his eyes on the road ahead while he told me his story, but I could see from his profile that a memory had just taken him back to that day in the ocean, alone with God. At that moment a big tear rolled out of his eye, and slid down his cheek. He tried to speak, but choked. He sucked in a deep breath, paused, and then went on speaking with quivering lips.

"And right then my feet hit the bottom of the ocean." He choked up again.

"I raised myself out of the water up to my waist, and rested. I just rested."

He took his eyes off the road, and glanced over at me for the first time, maybe to gauge my reaction. Maybe he wanted me to see the truth in his eyes. He looked back to the road.

"After the war I got some shipping charts. There's no shallow water anywhere near where I was floating. That water is some of the deepest on earth; several miles deep. But I stood up, and the life vest quit rubbing on my raw skin. I just rested. After a while I saw something on the horizon floating toward me. Finally I realized what it was. The current was bringing the men from the Independence straight toward me. I just stood there waiting for them.

"The men were a couple of hundred yards away when I heard a plane. We were all waving and yelling. And the men on the plane saw us. They circled, dropped a container of water, and then flew off. The container landed pretty far away, and no one in the group started swimming out to get it. They were all half dead, and didn't have the strength. But I did. I had been resting for hours.

"When I got to the water container I found it empty. It had cracked when it hit the ocean, and all the drinking water leaked out. I swam back to the group with the container so they wouldn't think that I drank it all. We were all so thirsty, but we knew that we could make it a few more hours. They'd be back to get us.

"Before long, a PBY flying boat landed. Only about 300 of us were still alive. A crewman told us that they couldn't take everyone on the first flight. He told us that the most badly injured would fly out first. They looked at my burns, and told me to get on board, and we took off. The medic announced that he only had twelve shots of morphine, so he could only relieve the pain for twelve of us. I was picked as one of the twelve to get a shot of morphine, but I told him to let someone else have mine. I had rested in the arms of God. That had been all the pain relief I needed.

"That medic had probably never treated anyone as close to death as we all were. That dosage of morphine was for a wounded, but healthy man. All twelve men that took the shot of morphine overdosed on it and died on the plane. My life had been spared again. You see, God kept his part of the deal, so now I'm keeping mine. Son, I'm going to have to turn off the highway right up here."

Harold Gause pulled onto the shoulder of the road. He reached in his wallet, and pulled out a ten-dollar bill.

"Could you use this blessing?" he asked. I happened to have a full stomach at the time, but, yes, my wallet was empty. I believe God was in Harold Gause because God knew that's how much money I brought to Florida, and that's how much money was in my pocket when I left. Ten dollars had been the limit of my faith.

"I like that story," Jada said as if it was the first time she had ever heard it. She was 16 that Thanksgiving, and had heard about Harold Gause many times growing up. She, like I, appreciate that story because we each have our own versions of seemingly hopeless situations. When she hears the story about Harold Gause, alone in the middle of the deepest of the deep oceans, reaching out in faith and grasping on to the very substance of hope, it puts things in perspective for her. But time will pass, and she'll forget about Harold Gause, and her troubles will close in on her again. Then, like at that Thanksgiving, and maybe even next is Thanksgiving, she'll ask me again to tell her the story of just how deep Harold Gause's troubles were, and how God gave him a place to stand and rest.