Me outside 6 Emlyn Square several years after the events described on this page
This page has been very difficult for me to write. I did many things during this period of which I am heartily ashamed and I sometimes wish I could go back and start all over again. However, I have tried to be honest and to "tell it as it was." Where I have written from hindsight I have said so.
When I started work I proceeded to get into all sorts of trouble, most of which I am ashamed to recall now. Things went from bad to worse and from worse to much worse and I seemed unable to do anything about it at all. I often stayed out all night and once, when I was stopping with a girl, Dad appeared at the door and insisted that I come home. He looked very fierce and determined so I didn't really have much option but to do as he said. Fuming inwardly, I listened with impatience and arrogance as he attempted to tell me how everyone was very worried about me, and how I would not be fit for work in the morning. "What a cheek!" I thought, "It's my life and I will do as I like." But I didn't say so.
Back at home I had just climbed into bed when Dad appeared again and he seemed to be almost apologetic and sorry for me. With that I said, "I was going to see you and the family all right before I left home but now you bastard lot can rot in hell!" How often I have regretted those words over the years and how ashamed I am about them now, as I recall and write them. In fact, I think I regretted them almost as soon as they were said but would I apologise? Not me. Dad looked for a minute as though he was going to explode but, wisely, he simply left the room.
While this sort of thing was going on, I discovered that one of the people at work, Ron Lane by name, was a "Born-again Christian" and, like all my work-mates, I despised and tormented him. He was an object of ridicule to all and sundry but he still tried to maintain his different way of life under very trying circumstances. Eventually this began to impress me to the extent that, in spite of everyone beginning to get at me for listening to him, I asked various questions and talked with him often about his faith. Eventually, to everyone's surprise, I agreed to attend church with him.
The church Ron Lane attended was the Bible Institute and Church (BIAC) in Devizes Road and I went there for almost a year, watching what was going on, meeting people and learning as much as I could about "being saved" and what that actually meant. After all that assimilation I became convinced of the truth of it all but I stupidly still did nothing about it. In fact, by now, I was having to see a Probation Officer who was trying to sort me out unofficially but with little success.
So things went on much the same as usual while I dallied. It seemed a very big step to take and I thought I would have to give up so many things which I thought I enjoyed. People at work would argue that I would become narrow-minded and fanatical, and that life would become like a funnel to me, wide at the top but becoming more and more restricted all the time. It was also pointed out to me that Jesus himself had said that the way that led to real life was narrow and that few people found it.
The final push I needed was initiated one day while I was at work. I was standing on the bottom of a double-extension ladder to hold it steady when my mate at the top dropped his claw-hammer. It came down towards me circling over and over. Although he shouted for me to watch out, I looked up just in time to see the last few revolutions before it hit me on top of the head. Dazed, I hung on to the bottom of the ladder while other workers nearby came milling around to see if I was alright. As I began to assure them that I was not hurt, blood trickled out from under my beret and ran over my eyes, making everything look red.
First aid was administered and it all got cleared up somehow. The hammer handle had only caught me a glancing blow because of its rotation and I was also wearing a thick, woollen beret. These two factors undoubtedly saved my life but I had a headache for the rest of the day. They made me take it easy on-site for the rest of the day because we were working at a derelict factory in Oxford and I couldn't go home as would have happened if we had been in the Swindon area.
For the remainder of that day I pondered on what had happened and how easily I could have been killed outright by a hammer dropped from that height. For the first time I realised how uncertain life was and how spot-on the Bible is when it says, "In the midst of life we are in death."
That evening, having gone out as usual while still thinking such thoughts, I was getting undressed ready for bed when I decided that the time had come - I was going to be "saved." I deliberately knelt down by the side of my bed and prayed that Jesus would take over my life. I acknowledged how wrong I had been in the things that I had done and was continuing to do. I also acknowledged that I was unable to make any changes on my own and that He would have to help as He said he would. At the end of this prayer I stood up again expecting I don't know what, because I had heard so many testimonies about great joy and peace flooding one's heart at this stage. In my case nothing seemed to have happened at all.
As I stood there in the darkness of my bedroom, I seemed to hear a cold, hard voice say, "There you are. Nothing happened. It's all a load of rubbish." The fact that I had felt nothing at all disappointed and horrified me. But not for long. I had learned so much about "being saved" during the past year and I now remembered that we are saved by FAITH and not by FEELINGS. Having decided months ago that the Bible really was a unique and reliable book, I decided that I would simply act on what it said. And what it said was, "if any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away, all things are become new." Seeing no reason to doubt this statement, I hung on to it and went to sleep.
When I woke up next morning I still did not feel any different. I got ready for work and everything still seemed the same. Nevertheless, I hung on to the facts and I just knew that I had been saved and that I was a new creation.
I had always promised Ron Lane that I would tell him if and when I made such a decision and most mornings he would greet me with a rather sad, "You haven't made a decision yet, then?" On this particular morning I wondered how I could tell him that I had, when I had felt absolutely nothing, and that everything seemed the same. Imagine my surprise then, when he joyfully said, "Don't tell me, you've made your decision, I can see it in your face!" So there was something different after all, something which I couldn't sense but which others could see. What an odd world we live in.
As I began to tell other people of my acquaintance what I had done and what I now believed, their reactions would make a book in their own right. Some were glad, some were hostile, some would have nothing more to do with me now that I had "religious mania," as they said. My parents, however, were over the moon and thought that all their problems were over. I thought so too, for a while.
I soon found out that my problems, far from being over, were beginning to get into high gear now. In retrospect, I now know that it is all in the Bible but at the time I was only 15 and I couldn't learn everything at once. I didn't realise that we have an in-born nature that is anti-God and that when we are saved, we are born-again with a new nature that wants to do things God's way. The vital thing I didn't know was, that we not only have this new nature but we still retain the old nature. The two are natural enemies and are constantly trying to pull us one way or the other.
For a while I was in total confusion, having a new life but still allowing the old nature to have its way. The situation began to come clear as I took to reading the Bible every morning before I got up and got dressed for work. I bought a torch for this purpose because I didn't want to disturb anyone else. Normally, I had to be almost dragged out of bed, so one morning, when Mum came to wake me up she found me already sitting up in bed reading John's Gospel. She was so astonished at the fact that I was awake that she said, "Oh my Gawd! He's sitting up!" and collapsed into a nearby chair. I thought that was overdoing things a bit though.
As I became more enthusiastic in my new life I got in more and more of a tangle until I didn't know whether I was coming or going. Although I found some sort of peace by attending all the meetings at the BIAC, that was not a lasting solution. I still had to deal with the everyday world.
By this time I had learned to dread going back home after attending the BIAC because of the teasing. It always seemed to me as though they had been waiting all evening for me to return. Each time, before going in the front door of Emlyn Square, I had to pause, straighten my shoulders and take a big breath before entering. And then it started: "Here he comes, the Bible Basher comes home! What have you got to say, then? What about all the pain and suffering in the world, if there is a God? How do you know there actually is a God anyway? It's all Old Wive's tales and fairy stories." And so on and so on.
What they didn't know was that I had read in the Bible that it said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your house." I took this to mean that they too would, one day, be "saved" like me and we would all be in it together. It seemed utterly impossible at the time because they were all so hostile. Except Mum, that is. She was the first to see that enough was enough and would say, "Oh, leave him alone, let the kid be, can't you?" It didn't make any difference though. I answered them as best as I could but I left out my own opinions as far as possible. To me, the only real answers were in the Bible, so I used to say, "Well, the Bible says...." and this would irritate them more than ever.
I continued to pray for my family every day to be saved but I didn't really believe that it could possibly happen. Then one day I suddenly noticed that they had all made a commitment and that it was really true! It just sort of sneaked up on me while all the other things were happening.
The Curate of St. Marks Church, Brian Barnes, was a great help to me at this time. He was a regular visitor to my parents at Emlyn Square and one day he noticed me reading the Bible. He said, "Excuse me, John, is that a Bible you are reading?" I proceeded to tell him what had happened in spite of Dad shifting uncomfortably in his chair as I did so. He later invited me to his flat in Kingshill Road each week and we discussed many things. I think he must have had some idea of the trauma I was going through because he never preached to me. Instead, he got me to listen to a record he had of a solo singer singing, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" This was sung slowly and without musical accompaniment and it was balm to my soul. I think that must have been because I was released for the time being from doing things and I could just switch off and listen.
He also introduced me to Norman Vincent Peale's book "The Power of Positive Thinking." Even this he did not press on me but simply said, "John, I wonder if you would read this book and let me know what you think of it?" And what did I think of it? I was so impressed that I bought my own copy which I still have all these years later. In fact I have most of Mr. Peales' books. The value of them to me was that they explained clear and positive techniques on dealing with the sort of problems I was faced with. Not just what one ought to do, which I knew, but how to actually do it, which I did not know. Mr. Peale also taught me how to memorize portions of the Bible, a technique which has been of great benefit to me ever since.
So I began to get sorted out. I still treated people abominably from time to time but I slowly learned to allow God into my everyday life at work, at play or whatever and things improved. I wish I could say that I became expert at this. The fact is, I expect to go on learning until I leave this planet in due course. I'm glad that my final destination depends on what Jesus has done for me rather than on what I have done!
And did becoming a Christian make life like a funnel to me, wide at the beginning and becoming narrow and more restricted as time passed? No! The exact opposite was the case and my life has expanded and blossomed beyond my wildest dreams. Oh, I continued to have problems then and I still do now but they are all part of life's rich pattern. The events described above truly led me to the best thing that ever happened to me, the discovery of Jesus, the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life worth living.
Home address of this page: http://www.johnw55.freeuk.com/village
Page updated 21 July 2008