25 years: a life in perspective

It has been 25 years since I asked Jesus into my life. So now I’m celebrating, because I did not think I could hack it, and neither did many others.

I suppose many of us take up ‘things’ in our lives and eventually drop them when we get bored or they become too difficult. But belonging to Jesus has changed my life dramatically – and boring it isn’t. 

Looking back

When I was a teenager I did the things most teenagers do: I started smoking, drinking and taking an interest in the opposite sex. But with me it became excessive.

I became one of Loughborough’s first skinheads – I liked the uniform. I went to the football regularly and enjoyed the violence more than the game. Quite strange really because at school I wasn’t all that big and got into the habit of getting my head kicked in.

Things changed when I turned 17 and started to fill out a bit and win a few punch-ups – then I started to enjoy it. I also found that women were really quite nice, more fun than playing football and just a little bit more fun than fighting. I had an extraordinary number of girlfriends, probably because I was very handsome – still am – or so the wife tells me.

By the time I was 19, events were coming to a head. I had been palling around with a good mate ‘Chuck’ for about a year and we were raising hell. Every week there were fights, every week there were different women and every week we got drunk. Neither of us had a regular job so for long periods we were on the dole. We never had any ambitions and we couldn’t care less. Surely this would last forever? Unfortunately it didn’t.

Chuck got a girl pregnant and married her (people did that sort of thing in those days) and I was left without a mate. I was gutted at this because we had been so close: I had been spending six days a week with him and then all of a sudden he’d gone. My life entered a void; and when people have voids in their lives they have a tendency to do something stupid. I did! 

Something stupid

My stupid thing was to join the army – and I didn’t just join the army, I joined the Parachute Regiment. I blame Chuck myself: rebound. My beloved father was thrilled. He had some sort of idea that they would sort me out and make a man of me.

I do not know why I chose the ‘Paras’: maybe I had received brain damage after being kicked in the head too many times. It might even have been my dad: I remember he clipped my ear once. Perhaps the real reason was that I had read too many of those 1/- (one shilling) soldier mags that were common when I was a kid.

However, I was soon to regret my choice when the sergeant decided that just he and I would, in my first week, go on an eight mile run over the ‘tank tracks’. The ‘tank tracks’ was an area where they trained tank drivers: lots of hills and lots of mud. The ‘tank tracks’ was not bad terrain if you were driving around – in a tank – but I was just a young man that had never run more than 50 yards in his life – and that was for a bus.

The next six months was something I wish you had seen – because you will never believe me describing it to you. We did some running, marching, running, shooting, running, tactics, running. Regimental history, running, some work in the gym, running, unarmed combat and – oh yes... running. By the end I could run 10 miles in an hour with 75 lb of sand on my back and I was particularly good at taking telegraph poles for a short run over the ‘tank tracks’.

Of course being in the ‘Paras’ meant you also needed to learn how to jump from an aeroplane. To earn your ‘wings’ meant you had to do your first two jumps from a balloon at 1000 ft and six more from a plane at 800 ft. The lower the height the more dangerous it gets: you need height to give your parachute enough time to open fully. Operational jumps can be from 400 ft where it is a waste of time wearing a reserve parachute because if the first one doesn’t open there is insufficient time to open the second one.

One story I remember from when we were lined up in the hanger awaiting our first jump from a plane. One of the lads uttered these immortal words: ‘Do you realise they are asking us to jump out of a perfectly working aeroplane travelling at 160 mph on the off chance that this bag of laundry on our backs is going to open and save our lives?’ At that, one of the other lads within hearing range said, ‘I’m not jumping’, walked off and we never saw him again.

Of the 64 young men who started the training, after six months only 18 were left.

I spent the next three years doing what soldiers do. I saw Singapore, Malaya, Germany and did two tours in Belfast. That was in 1973/74 when things were a little hot. I will not dwell on events during my service time, mainly because I have signed the Official Secrets Act and partly because I don’t think the Statute of Limitations has run out on some of the things I did.

Something horrible

While in the army I was introduced to smoking dope and got to use it quite regularly. Of course the smoking moved on to Speed and then to LSD. The drugs were getting a little out of hand when something horrible happened.

The guy that was supplying us also supplied some civvies in the town and a young girl under the influence of drugs thought she could fly and took a dive out of a high window. She died. The police found the supplier, he grassed on all his customers and to cut a long story short we got a few weeks in the guardhouse then thrown out of the army.

Civvy street

That was in 1976 when the unemployment rate was pretty high. I had got married a year before to Sandy and she was pregnant with our first son. Not a great start to civvy street. Sandy was from Northumberland. I had to marry someone from far away: no one down here would have me – I was too well known.

The next few years were unsettled. I drifted from job to job; we moved houses a few times and filled up the family home with three sons. I started work as a night club doorman in town where the drugs, booze, women and violence were all free. At home I had my dinner cooked for me, clean sheets on the bed and a wife to look after my every need.

I had no thought of what the future held. I was very selfish in that I did not care for others; my life was for me even though it was going nowhere. What I failed to notice was that Sandy was severely depressed. She could see that I was taking her for granted, and for her the marriage was on the rocks. She was about to leave, whilst I was blissfully unaware of any of it.

Then a dramatic turn of events began within our family that was to change all our lives: Jesus stepped in.

Several months before Sandy’s decision to go, her mum and dad had become Christians – this was in 1982. Now here I would like to explain something. If you were to have asked me at that time if I were a Christian, I would have said, ‘Yes’. I mean, am I not an Englishman and is it not our inherent right to a first class ticket to Heaven based on that principle? Had I not also been to church when I was a kid – surely that counts for something? Apparently not. However, this is something I would learn at a later date. Back to the story.

A changed woman

Sandy had told her parents about our circumstances and they gave her a cassette tape to listen to with a Gospel message on it. The tape had everything Sandy needed to hear, and at the end of the message she got on her knees and asked Jesus into her life. She woke up the next morning a changed woman – the depression had gone.

A couple of days later at 7 o’clock in the evening I was watching the telly and Sandy came downstairs all dressed up. Surprised, I said: ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Out’, came the reply and with that she went.

I was a little bit stunned not knowing where she was going and it dawned on me that she must have got a man on the go somewhere. I then realised that I deserved it because of the way I had treated her.

And I was right: it was a man. His name was Jesus. Her nights out were at church.

Over the next two years I tried and failed to make her life a misery. I went out of my way to be obnoxious, poked fun at her and threw all the usual arguments and worldly logic in her face. She took it all.

A chat with Jesus

In the autumn of 1984 I was lying in bed; it was past midnight and I was thinking about Jesus. You see over the previous two years Sandy’s life with Him had made an impression. I thought I could rise above it – that I didn’t need it – but I was sadly mistaken. I made myself a promise, that if I was still awake at 12.30 I would get up and have a chat with Jesus.

Of course my eyes were wide open from that moment on and I gave up waiting after five minutes knowing full well I would never get to sleep. I got dressed and walked to Queen’s Park.

It was dark of course and nobody was around, thankfully. I didn’t want anyone to see me doing anything stupid. I walked to the Carillon, (a rather large war memorial in the park) and gazed up at the floodlit cross on top – then I told God I was sorry for all the stupid things I had done in my life and asked Jesus to come into my heart and change me.

After the prayer I looked around expectantly. Where were all the angels? Where was Jesus? Where was the band? Nothing!!!! I expected at least a small visit. Didn’t they know who I was? A little perturbed, I prayed again, in case He hadn’t heard me or maybe hadn’t believed me the first time. Again no response. I went home feeling just a little put out.

Sandy was still awake when I got there and she had a big smile on her face. ‘You’ve done it, haven’t you?’ she asked. ‘Well, as it happens He doesn’t want me’ I replied. She had a little laugh at that and told me to go to sleep and wait until the morning.

The next day I awoke and I knew something had happened. Things were going off in my mind that I could not explain. I was a mess and spent the whole week in a daze. A battle was going on inside me and I couldn’t control it. The Pastor of my new church told me it was the Devil, who was jarred off at losing such a good follower and wanted me back. But Jesus was more determined to keep me. The Pastor prayed for me and the confusion went and my growth began.

A changed man

I could write a book on the things that have happened in my life since that day. There is insufficient space here, so I will stick to a few high points.

Taking drugs stopped straight away: I no longer needed them. Going with other women stopped: I no longer wanted them. I stopped drinking alcohol, not because as a Christian you’re not allowed to, but because my drinking was excessive and could not be controlled, so I just stopped.

I remember waking up one morning and realising that I had stopped swearing – I would not even use the ‘mild’ words. This is not something that I had resolved to do – it just happened. 

Smoking was a different matter, the drug nicotine. I remember Jesus saying to me one night that I had to give up the cigarettes. I told Him straight that I had tried in the past and I didn’t have it in me and that if He wanted me to give up the fags, He would have to do it. From the next morning I never smoked again and I never had any withdrawal symptoms.

The violence has gone as well: in 25 years I have never raised a fist. I have been threatened a couple of times and come close to receiving a good thrashing by bigger blokes, but I have never retaliated. It’s nice to be able to walk down the street without fear.

Besides the practical ways, my life changed in other avenues too. The way I felt about others changed. I began to feel compassion for them, love for them. I found myself wanting to feel about others the way Jesus does.

My marriage has to be the best example. We had been on the verge of breaking up and yet here we are after 35 years still married – and not just married, but great friends and in love.

Before I knew Jesus I had love for only one person: me. I was only out to satisfy me. I was oblivious to the effect my actions were having on others: my wife, my kids, my parents. In short I was making their lives a misery and I couldn’t care less. I wasn’t even aware that I was destroying other lives by my actions. 

No substitute

Before finding Jesus I had a big hole in my life which I tried to fill with substitutes such as drugs and violence. I believed they were the answer to the void inside me. But they were the wrong shape, they did not fit: all they did was mess my life up.

You see the hole was Jesus shaped – and now He is where He should be: there is no substitute.