Real Lives
George
I was born in a nursing home on Balliol Road, Bootle in the middle of World War II. At school I lost count of how many times I got the cane; with my Dad being paralysed from a stroke and my Mum looking after him full time, my behaviour inside and outside of school got worse. I stole anything that wasn't tied down and vandalised anything that was breakable.
Eventually I was suspended, then expelled from school. Only my Mum knew the truth and she was shell-shocked. I told my Dad that I had finished school early because of my achievements and he never questioned it. Mum was so devastated by my expulsion that I tried to be atypically nice and when she asked me to go to church with her I agreed to go for a couple of weeks. It was, as I suspected, full of people in suits and extremely boring - a waste of time as far as I was concerned. The speaker for the evening was small, 'pixilated', wizened and Welsh.
After what seemed an eternity he shut the huge Bible with a dull thud, a good sign that the torture was nearly over, and with his head scanning the congregation he couldn't see, his scrawny neck and prominent Adam's apple wobbling, he pointed across the auditorium in my general direction. "There is a young man here who is a sinner." (His voice rose in pitch as he said sinner). This was nothing new, I got street credibility from being one. "Jesus loved you and died for you!" he continued. "So what?" I thought to myself, but even as I thought it, I could feel my eyes watering. "Hay fever", I explained as I borrowed my Mum's handkerchief. I was annoyed with myself. This horrible little Welshman had invaded my agnostic cool. Theologically I was neither a believer nor an atheist. I could not imagine how the world around me with all its complexity could have come into being from nothing. Design in nature implied a designer; religion may well have some truth hidden behind the boring people that embraced or propped themselves up with it, but it was irrelevant to me. It didn't bother me that this geriatric called me a sinner, but the idea of Jesus loving me enough to die for me was like a kick in the belly. I couldn't wait to get out of the place and get home.
When I eventually got to bed I couldn't sleep. Hammering at my subconscious was "Jesus died for you". But I didn't ask him to! Suddenly I saw the situation without the filters of delusion, stupidity and arrogance. I had taken advantage of my Dad's illness to manipulate others. I was getting a buzz at the expense of the fear of others. My years of vandalism and violence had all but finished off any chance of a reasonable education. I was just a sad lonely fool. I sat up and said to the wall, "God, if you're real then do something with me". A crazy thing to do? Yes, even crazier because He did! A sense of peace flooded over me and I fell asleep. The next morning it was still present. My life had been changed, my thoughts, even my motives. I felt different. The truth is, I was different and I still am after almost 40 years. My mother was pleased and so were her group of praying women. My peer group of fellow bikers and 'scallies' were not. Most of them feared me as a 'nutter', a loose cannon, but they were unable to cope with me at all as a Christian.
Life has not been that easy since I made that decision to follow Christ: I lost my memory, I was swindled out of thousands, was unemployed for 13 years and was nearly killed on many occasions but God preserved me. What I can say is that without Jesus I would be a mess, at least in prison and probably dead. He is alive, he loves you and is waiting for you to take the biggest step of your life: to ask him to come into your life and change not just your circumstances, but to change you for the better. That's what He did for me!
