Shortly after moving to Texas in 1989 I figured out I didn’t like working in my Aunt’s screen printing shop (where I got the T-shirt I am wearing in the picture) so I started working for a telemarketing company. This photo was taken within the first two weeks of my being there. It was on a Saturday (why we were allowed to wear t-shirts) and yes, my t-shirt sleeves are rolled up and yes that is a leather ball cap on my head. Oh and yes, those are Sally Jesse Raphael type glasses.
I know I know ::: shrug shoulders :::
There wasn’t anything “post-gay” about me that day … but this photo does prove that having fashion sense is not a universal innate genetic trait among gay identified men.
The lady who took this picture, let’s call her Sybil, had multiple personalities. Sybil would be in one personality on the phone and could sell anything to anyone. She sold a TON of stuff on the phone and was one of the top producers in the call center. However, off the phone, she was talking about the illuminati, satanists, witches, trances, rituals, conspiracies … she never made any sense unless she was trying to sell you on a free 30 day trial membership in Citi-travel.
She was mean as a snake to everyone but me. That’s probably why the guy next to me in the picture looks a little wide-eyed. Before I started working there, Sybil attacked a man she was convinced worked for her old coven with a pencil. She hated that he drove a BMW too. YET, because she was so good at selling things on the phone, they convinced the victim (had a scratch on his hand) to not call the police and kept her on the payroll. We always lived under the threat she might go a little nutty with the pencil thing again. She seemed to relish the attention when she would get up to go sharpen her pencils.
But the day of the above picture, she ran up out of the back (she refused to sit anywhere with her back to anyone) and started taking pictures of me. She gave me one of them.
I was still a little high from partying the night before. I had been out at the clubs, ran into an old Nashville friend and then he, me and about 40 other guys ended up in a beautiful condo somewhere in downtown Dallas dropping XTC. X doesn’t wear off quickly so, while drug induced, I was in a great mood to have my picture taken by a stalkarazzi woman with multiple personalities.
Sybil would rather forcefully inform me that she could trust me because I could understand her. That I would understand the spirits that danced around the fire in the mists. I just responded that I didn’t know what she was talking about but God loved her. I wasn’t “saved” at the time but I knew that whatever was tormenting her wasn’t God’s love and if she would go to Him, and not “them”, she’d be alright.
Then I just wanted her to hush because I wanted to go home and go to sleep.
What you might not see in this picture is that I was dying inside. I was about to bottom out on drugs and didn’t have much hope. So while I have a couple of interesting sidenotes to share about the story surrounding the picture. Every time I see this picture there is a bittersweet note in my heart that remembers how empty my soul really was that day.
Now, a couple of months short of 20 years later, The picture serves to remind me that while I still don’t have any natural fashion sense (I have learned a lot), the Lord was a good Shepherd even when I was blind to His presence. He preserved me in spite of myself and brought me into True Life.
He is Trustworthy.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Snapshot 1990 – Scared Co-Worker, Leather Ball Cap and MPD Photographer http://bit.ly/6E253e
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Hi Randy,
Thanks for posting this one …
I had a good chuck with the comment … “stalkarazzi with multiple personality”
I’ll be leading worship this Tuesday @ a Living Waters meeting and have had to prepare a couple of talks surrounding my own personal testimony … “welcoming Him into our brokeness” and the talk coming up is the second part to the section on abuse…. and so I’ve been thinking basically about some of the same things …
“He preserved me in spite of myself and brought me into true life”
Well, I don’t have a history of drugs and parties … I lived transgenered for 2 yrs although never had entered into a lesbian relationship … the Lord saved me from a lot of pain and preserved me in the worst of times … so, you have the interesting stories I wish I had
but at the same time this blog post has been a very good reminder for me … His presence in our lives in years past and today and his continued presence in our lives moving forward. Certainly the Lord does not give up on the ones that we in the church might be quick to give up on. And I for one am and will always be greatful I serve a God who has and always will be faithful and good.
Thank you for your testimony and I pray you had a great time with your meeting. Let us know how it goes.
Snapshot 1990 – Scared Co-Worker, Leather Ball Cap and MPD Photographer http://bit.ly/6E253e
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Thanks for posting that! It’s funny how certain pictures bring us back to times that have no direct relation to the photo itself, but remind us of a feeling or time when we at least knew where our soul was and how our spirit was that day. I remember and connected this to your testimony that you shared at a Post-Gay session this past summer, so it’s cool to connect that and form a picture to the testimony you had given. You are right, God does carry us through these situations: while I haven’t personally struggled with drugs or club life, I have had my share of doozies that, at least, rocked my little world at the time. It takes humility to post photos that are somewhat unposed or what we consider to be unfashionable and whatnot. (Something I admittedly struggle with sometimes.) Again, thanks for posting that.
Thank you Will. We all got our “stuff” but He is faithful and not scared of any of it
. Thanks for commenting.
So true, Randy. We all have our stuff, and in spite of it, even when we didn’t know Him, He reached out to us in love and then made us new creations when we were convicted by the Holy Spirit of our need for Christ as our Savior and believed in His Son. It will never cease to amaze me that He loved us and was working in our lives even while we were in open rebellion against Him.
Man, thanks for sharing that. What a great reminder!
Thanks for your comment and support. I like the way you stated the above because that is part of what His unconditional love for us looks like.