When I began writing again in 2013 following a hiatus of maybe 13 years, I started out by accepting the writing challenge of a Christian website called Faithwriters. The idea was that each week a new topic would be given, and we were to write a story of no more than 750 words revolving around that topic. Over the course of a couple years I wrote more than 100 such stories and worked my way into a Master designation based on the Faithwriters’ evaluation criteria.
The approach I took in many of the stories was to glean an idea from something I knew or had seen in the news. Typically with outrageous items as ideas for a story, I took them to an extreme. In other words, with something outlandish that caught my attention, what if this item became normal or greatly approved in our culture? Conversely, what if this issue became part of a dystopian nightmare? What might these things look like?
All those stories I wrote are still posted on the Faithwriters website, but my wife suggested I collect them into books comprised of my various efforts. One of the collections of my works is titled Zapped! Omnibus since it contains multiple volumes of my stories in the way I put them together. FYI – It is available on Amazon along with my novels and non-fiction Bible-directed works:
The reason I bring this up is because of a news item that the Fox News website led with on April 28, 2023 titled:
From transgendered to ‘transabled’: Now people are ‘choosing’ to identify as handicapped
https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/transgendered-transabled-people-choosing-identify-handicapped
This is a highly disturbing issue and trend that has just now made these headline waves. However, given my introduction above, would it surprise you that this was something I wrote about as part of the Faithwriters Challenge?
Yes, I was somewhat prescient about this, as with a number of other issues that I went to the extreme in writing about in this very short form. God has been good to me in enabling me to be on the cutting edge of many aspects of our coming dystopia – otherwise known as the Tribulation.
Without further ado, here for your head-shaking reading of the day is the story I wrote in 2015 about this subject contained in Zapped!:
Transitory
Challenge topic: Photos and/or Souvenirs
What happened to the exaltation of God rather than self – even in many churches today?
I almost cried with the support I received from my church family. I had started coming to church because of the hurt and disappointment in my life. Through pastoral sermons and small group encounters I learned that others had also suffered. To know that I wasn’t alone and to know that my new friends would bear my cross with me made me happier than I’d been since childhood.
For many years I’d experienced a deep sense of need that nothing could fulfill. I had a huge hole in my heart, a desire to be other than what I was. Being surrounded by such loving people showed me the way to mend.
My pastor encouraged me to take a vacation to truly find and become myself. During this time she persuaded me that only by seeking and acting on my deeply held beliefs would I ever experience the sum total of whom I was meant to be.
Medical vacations had come to my attention in recent years, so I booked my excursion. I had a slight operation that I’d been putting off and combined that with my soul journey. A friend from church accompanied me and we headed for Phoenix, excitedly anticipating both the guy things we’d do and my passage into wellness.
For the first several days Larry and I took driving expeditions, exploring the countryside and hiking in the bountiful wilderness areas. We enjoyed the parched, yet colorful, deserts and refreshing mountain streams. The photos we took showed a couple of crazies sitting gingerly on the outstretched arm of giant saguaro cactus and scampering up steep, rocky trails. It was good, but highlighted the desolation I knew would soon end.
The clinic performed the minor surgery I needed and followed up with my additional request. The doctor asked me whether I was sure I truly wanted to proceed, and I assured him this was the dream of a lifetime. He had his reservations but proved to be a terrific sport. My preparations before the trip were extensive. The clinic was one of the few that would carry out operations such as mine, although more private practices were opening their doors to this kind of procedure every day.
When I regained consciousness after the operation I saw Larry sitting by my bedside grinning at me. He might have been more excited than me. Still groggy I asked him, “Have you looked yet?” When I pulled back the covers I almost fainted from delight.
The heavily bandaged stumps of my two previously healthy legs lay against the sheets. “Quick, get your camera!” I urged my friend.
He snapped several pictures and I gazed at them in wonder. The desire of a lifetime had been realized. I’d been physically whole but incomplete as a person. Now that I’d had my legs amputated and was physically deficient, I’d become the whole man I was meant to be. I knew that as a newly transabled individual I would no longer suffer the deficiency in my heart, the longing to be less in order to be more. I thanked God for His mercy.
I had to be careful once they released me, but my joy knew no bounds. Larry and I drove into the desert and he carefully helped me into my new wheelchair. With difficulty he positioned me by a cactus and took a new series of photos. I thought of them as the after shots contrasting to our earlier exploits; mementos of a dream vacation.
Returning home I arranged with my pastor to make a small presentation to our congregation that next Sunday. On that morning, beaming to all who affirmed me I spoke of how their love and encouragement had given me the fortitude to pursue my passion. Afterwards, many of my friends clustered around me to offer their congratulations.
Someone I didn’t recognize came up to me in a lull, her face full of hurt. “How could you do that?” she asked.
“To fill the void in my heart.” I responded. “To be all that God meant me to be.”
She shook her head, obviously at a loss. “But what about Jesus? Isn’t He enough? Why didn’t you pursue Him?”
“What’s He got to do with any of this?”
“He’s the One you should seek. You’ll never find wholeness within your own heart. Haven’t they taught you that at this church?”
My heart raced. Her question confused me. I realized then: I knew nothing about Jesus.
The sin of vanity has run amok.
Indeed, you were prescient on this topic Gary. Admittedly, I would have a difficult time reaching into my mind to conceive of such a thing.
Depravity is the best word to describe the depth of insanity this kind of behavior exhibits. Ecclesiastes 9:3 describes us perfectly. “…the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.”
Without our Savior we are dead in our thinking and we unknowingly stink of death; worst of all, we are eternally dead in our sins.
When I wrote things like this, some of the comments from the Faithwriters community were that what I described was too far out. Hah! As I say, all one has to do is take something to the extreme in imagining it; it will likely come to pass in this world.
You and the Babylon Bee. You are in good company!
Yes, their satire comes all too true much too often.
What a strange thing to do. And since he didn’t know Jesus, the god he was thankful to could not have been the only living God.
It appears this man is deeply disturbed. Throughout history people have lived lives of quiet despair. Without Jesus, they perhaps are so deeply sunk into a feeling of total worthlessness and desperately seek the type of attention they feel they need to be noticed. Perhaps there is a need for some kind of importance or
worth. There are a lot of well known celebrities that enjoy even the negative attention they get from constant affairs, drug use or other deviant activities. To me, this is the extreme end of that mental problem. Of course, self mutilation also has the added advantage of pity similar to what could be received in an accident for instance.
The mindset behind this trend is so demonic. Truly to think that you can be more with less of what God has given you. How this must grieve Him.