shooting

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It Was Not Easy, But Difficult

What I thought was going to be easy ended up being very difficult. 

In fact, I thought I was going to be good at it but it turned out that I was nothing more than average. 

A few days ago I gave a witness statement to the police as to what I saw during the shooting incident at the hospital. 

You can read about the incident here.

The police had so many people to interview and talk to the night it happened that they asked me to come to the police station the next day to have my statement recorded. 

I had to go to Toronto the next day so I ended up giving my statement five days after it all happened.

I really thought I had it down pat. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t tell the story at least once. There were times when I was going to sleep or waking up that I rehearsed what I saw … maybe partly because I didn’t want to forget anything for my testimony.

When the time came for me to tell my story, I was feeling like I had it all together. 

When I got to the police station, they led me to a room that had some cameras in it, and told me they would be recording the conversation.

Then the officer asked me to start at the beginning.  

“Easy,” I thought, and I began to recount how I heard a noise down the corridor.  

About two sentences later the officer stopped me. He said, “I need you to go back and tell me who you saw and what you saw them doing.” 

I had referred to “the men”, but I didn’t identify who the men were. I also didn’t identify who had the gun. 

So I started again and made it clear that there were two corrections officers and one inmate. 

But then I started to refer to the different individuals as “the guy” or “he” or “they”. 

And again the officer asked me to back up.

At this point I realized it was not easy to give a witness statement … and I was not that good at it. 

You see, I had the whole incident very clear in my mind. I could roll the memory tape forward and back. I could jump into the story at any place and know exactly who I was thinking about. But for other people – for an officer who will have to testify to the details I spoke about – it was very confusing. 

The movie that was playing in my head was not being shown on the wall for the officer to see. 

… It’s like listening to a hockey game on the radio instead of watching it on TV. Unless the announcers are specific in their descriptions, you don’t know what is happening in the game. 

It took longer than I had hoped. But in the end, I think I gave a statement that clearly identified all the players, and created a picture for the police that helped them see from my perspective what happened the night of the shooting. 

Here’s the thing: What you think is obvious might not be that clear to someone else. You might think that you clearly demonstrate a life surrendered to God, but it might not be that clear to someone who is seeking God. You need to plainly articulate your faith to others – don’t assume. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Who might you need to clearly present the gospel to? Leave your comments below.

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I Didn’t Know What Would Happen Next

You just don’t know what will happen next. Fortunately, most of the time what happens is what we expect or what we could predict will happen. 

But sometimes what happens next is so unexpected, so unimaginable that it changes everything for the immediate future or forever. 

One week ago there was a shooting in the emergency room of the Kingston General Hospital. 

I was there. It happened out of the blue and it altered the lives of everyone in that ER, at least for a few hours, and maybe for years.

The whole thing unfolded before me like in a movie. 

I used to play a video game called “Uncharted”. There really isn’t another game like it. The game combines action sequences, where you use the joystick to make the main character perform actions like climbing and a host of other things, with video scenes to fill in the background storyline and dialogue between the main characters. 

When I was playing the game, and Lily would come into the room, I would always say, “Sit down; it’s like watching a movie – only I also get to participate.” 

And that’s exactly like what I witnessed in the hospital emergency room this last week.

I went in to visit a man from my congregation; his wife met me there. 

We sat with him in a curtained off bay with other patients on either side of us and across the way from us. 

During my visit I heard a noise like someone falling into something. Naturally, I looked out the opening of our curtain to see what was happening. 

What I saw was three men struggling with each other, coming toward me. Two of them tackled the third man right at the opening in our curtain. 

The two men doing the tackling were corrections officers. The third man was an inmate from a maximum security prison.

The officers were struggling to contain the inmate because he had somehow managed to grab one of the correction officer’s guns. 

As they wrestled on the floor of the ER, about 6-8 feet from me, the gun went off. 

It was one of the most helpless feelings one could experience. There was nowhere to go. The gun was facing towards our bay, towards us, and we couldn’t do anything to stop it or get out of the way. 

The fumes of the gunshot made me cough; I tasted a grittiness in my mouth. 

I wanted to get out of the way; I wanted to protect the ones I was visiting. I was moving from screening the patient’s wife from what was happening on the floor, to comforting the patient who reacted with a jolt when the shot was fired. 

We could do nothing but wait – wait for the officers to get the gun from the inmate or for another shot to be fired. 

Within about twenty seconds, another shot rang out. 

Shortly after that the gun was secured and the inmate subdued. 

An innocent person was hit by one of the shots. There was a bullet imbedded in the wall of the bay I was in. 

… And the lives of twenty to thirty people had changed in a flash. It was so unexpected. 

Here’s the thing: Life often flows like you think it will, or you predict it will. But the unexpected can happen at any time, and change your life for a moment, an hour or forever. You don’t know when a moment like that will happen to you. You can only mitigate an unexpected life change by being ready for anything. Be ready to face God. It could happen any time. Don’t wait, delay or even ponder it – place your faith now in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. Then you’ll be ready for the unexpected.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Are you ready to stand before God? Leave your comments below.