Last night I was thinking of a movie where a doctor was meant operate on a crook who had just killed another doctor and then tried to kill her. As could be expected, she didn’t treat him the same as her normal patients – and who could blame her?
It reminded of a time when I was lying on a hospital gurney, skin missing off most of the left side of my body, the blood dried so the blanket that was on me was stuck fast.
The bone in my big toe was visible – the road had ground through the layers of flesh to expose it. I had been lying here for a few hours and the pain was intense.
At last a nurse wheeled me into a room, but as she got the bed in through the door she was called off by someone up the hall. She left me for a minute or so to talk to them, then came back and wheeled me back out into the corridor again where I waited for another hour or two.
This was a time where my own stubbornness (and maybe high pain tolerance) worked against me. If I had been screaming relentlessly – I would have been seen to right away or at least given something to numb the pain. But I didn’t.
Finally I was wheeled into that room again where the nurse pulled the blanket off me, got some gauze and started to scrub the open wounds to remove the gravel and road base. She started on my left arm that had no skin pretty much from shoulder to fingers.
It was agony. I don’t recall how long I grit my teeth and tried to bare it – but when I could take it no longer I said to the nurse something along the lines of:
‘I don’t know what the cops told you, but I was chased by them but I didn’t know they were cops. They had no light, no siren’
She looked shocked and questioned me:
Are you serious?
‘Yes – I thought it was a stolen car and they were going to kill us. They looked like they were going to ram us off the motorbike we were on.’
I recall her walking out the room very quickly, coming back with a needle of something and said ‘we are prepping you for theatre’ and she sedated me.
I knew the cops that had chased me were bad – and I already expected the worse of all of them. This magnified it further.
I never did (and still don’t) hold a grudge against those nurses, I likely would have done the same thing, or worse. You see they had to treat the girl who was on the back of my bike at the time…and she was in a far worse state.
The exhaust of the motorbike had burned through to the bone on her leg. They had been told I was drink riding, dangerous driving and involved in a high speed chase. And, unfortunately, all of that was true.
What I told the nurse was also true though. I was speeding heavily along wanneroo road – so fast that as I rounded a bend & saw what looked like a police car ahead it was too late and I passed it doing likely twice the speed limit.
But when I looked back, there seemed to be no reaction so thought that was the end of it – it mustn’t have been cops. A little further down Wanneroo road, as I turned right, I was startled to hear a car skidding towards me from behind, which looked & sounded like it was going to hit me.
I accelerated out of the way and looked back – it was boring down on me again with no sign of stopping so I decided to get away. I had been chased by a stolen car just a few days earlier – and when they got close they threw beer bottles at me. On a bike, there is little protection.
I rode like crazy – around the wrong side of round-a-bouts and hit some very high speeds. I actually thought all was clear and had pulled far away when I lost the front end…
As the car behind us skidded to a halt, I expected men with baseball bats or something worse to attack us, so I tried to be ready. As I approached the drivers door I saw that they were police!
I think I literally staggered back in disbelief. I was in shock and yelled at them “what are you doing?” “Where is your lights & siren?”
As one of them walked around the other side to put the blue light on, the started to force me to sit on the curb. But I became aware of the screams of the girl, still trapped under the bike, the exhaust burning through her leg.
I pushed my way up past the cop to lift the bike off her and one of the police did end up helping. It wasn’t long before other police cars and an ambulance arrived.
I was put in a police van while the ambulance attended to the girl, putting her in a neck brace and taking her to hospital.
The ambulance officers checked me over, put a makeshift bandage on my foot to try to stem the flow of blood and told the police I needed to go straight to hospital, something they ignored.
I was taken to the police station instead. On the way, one of them told me outright they would lie about the light & siren – something I would find out later wasn’t a first for them.
For detectives in the armed robbery division – they certainly didn’t care about the law. Their position made it very difficult to go up against in court and although I narrowly avoided jail, it cost me a lot. Thousands in lawyers bills, ongoing pain, a number of operations and loss of licence for like, ages!
The seething anger drove me at times – eventually seeking their home addresses and planning my revenge. Looking back I remember sitting out the front of a house in Kingsley, just a few minutes from where I lived and I am *very* thankful that God orchestrated things so that I never took action…I digress.
Covered in blood, bleeding on the floor, they seemed to take forever doing alcohol tests before finally taking me to the hospital.
So, here I was, partly blaming myself – worried about the condition of the girl, a seething anger towards the police, but an understanding of the action of the nurses…
Is it the deep sense of justice that we have or would it more accurately be labelled revenge? Either way, someone who has tried to kill us or someone drink driving and causing GBH doesn’t deserve the same as a law abiding citizen do they?
Who could honestly say that they would treat someone with all the same care, compassion and effort if they knew the terrible actions of the patients?
I know someone who could – and did.
Mocked, rejected, tortured and dying His dying breath wasn’t that of anger or hatred.
He yelled of His accusers and those who had tortured Him:
“Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing”
The events described above are just a snippet of one night in a series of years of that kind of lifestyle. A lifestyle of drinking, drugs, dealing, stealing, ripping people off and hatred – not just towards the police. I hated anyone who crossed me, sure, and I hated anyone who claimed to be religious, but I also hated everyone I claimed to love.
Everything I did, when boiled down, was for what I got in return. I used & abused people under the guise of ‘love’.
It wasn’t until my eyes where opened to the God who had given me life did I understand why I was the way I was. It wasn’t until then did I discover what love was.
On a trip to end my life, the God who had every reason to treat me like a criminal, like someone who deserved death, judgement and hell gave the exact opposite.
It still brings tears to my eyes to read:
But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us *while* *we* *were* *still* *sinners*. Romans 5:8 (NLT)
The crimes I had committed, bad and vile deeds I had done, the many people He loved that I had hurt and mistreated * – none were enough to stop Him loving me.
In fact, as much as He hated my actions, while I was still doing them (in fact before He created the world) – He loved me & planned to send His Son to die in my place!
The difference this has made to my life is more than ‘just’ not following through with a plan to end my life. And, although it may seem different, not just turning me into a ‘religious nut’. I actually want to do good. I actually want to please God. I actually want the best for people – even when they treat me bad. That is not me – that is God changing me.
That is miraculous. Oh – and now I LOVE the police! 😂 In fact I find myself defending them even when they seem to have done the wrong thing. Crazy!
The love that the Father shows is amazing – unfailing – powerful – real – tangible – and does not depend on our actions – past or present!!!
For God gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.
He loves because His very nature is love. He loves without measure. And, when you trust in what His Son has done on the cross – He sees no wrongs in you or from your past.
Totally clean, pure and undefiled. Very different to the way others view us. And different to the way we see ourselves.
It is His opinion that matters.
The words of a song come to mind:
‘Come to the Father, although your gift is small,
Broken hearts, broken lives, He can take them all.
the power of His love, the power of His Son
Everything was done so you could come.’
Everything has been done so you can go direct to the Father. Complete, powerful and intimate connection all paid for.
I pray that you would sense His love today. May we be thankful that the God who is in control is loving not hating!
But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.
*For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.*
46 If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.47 If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Matthew 5:44-48 (NLT)
Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight.
8 Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin
Romans 4:7-8 (NLT)
NOTE:
* I am in no way saying that realising God’s forgiveness is an ‘out’ for wronging people or avoiding making it right with those who have been wronged in the past. Quite the opposite.
I could justify and even believed I was a victim for much of the pain I caused others, such was the depth of my deception.
But Jesus reveals our own evil intentions by showing us what pure, selfless love is. Then He commands His followers to make restitution for wrongs to others. Properly.
I have tried to do this where possible to many people and businesses – including to the girl mentioned in this story.
That said, our saying sorry or paying back even 7 times what we took, can only go so far. I have had done to me and I have done things to others that nothing a person says or does will change very much. But they can be healed / made right by Jesus. Sounds cliche – like a cop out – but I can attest from both sides (as the abused and abuser) that He actually can make the most vile things right.
We would love to help in this regard – drop us a line, request a Bible and check out the Ministry section for one way in which God does the healing.