Amazing Grace
Terry was late for an early morning appointment, when, at about 7.30 am, he came up behind a line of slow-moving traffic. The road sign said 60, but having no respect for the law, Terry twisted the throttle of his 900 cc Kawasaki wide open. The speedo was showing 160 as he passed the last vehicle in the line of 13 cars. Horrified, he realised the reason for the procession: a six-tonne backhoe was about to turn right, directly across his path.
“My life flashed before my eyes,” says Terry.
To this point, his life had been corrupt. He’d even made the newspapers on occasions, and now he was about to make them again. But this time in the obituaries. He’d often wondered if there was life after death, and now he was going to find out. Judges had never worried Terry, but in a second, he would meet the final Judge. At the speed he was travelling, and with only about 10 metres in which to stop, nothing could get him out of this problem.
The impact of the bike into the side of the tractor was incredible. Terry fell limp to the ground with a broken neck, his heart stopped and both lungs collapsed. A passer-by removed his helmet and gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the paramedics arrived.
“When they loaded me into the ambulance, I was totally unconscious and lifeless,” says Terry. He recounts his journey to hospital as a most amazing experience, not dissimilar to that of many who’ve gone to the brink and back.
“I watched the entire trip from the ceiling of the ambulance, looking down on the officer who was trying desperately to spark life back into my smashed body,” he asserts. “The driver couldn’t help his partner; he was too busy weaving through traffic, relaying my status to the hospital on the radio.
“I heard every word,” says Terry of that terrible time, suspended between life and death. “‘Patient has not responded; ETA to hospital, approximately four minutes.’ After that, I slipped into a coma. For three days I balanced on the cusp of death. It was the strangest place I’d ever been in my unbelievable life. And it was the only time I’d been frightened. Locked inside my coma, I cried out, ‘Forgive me, Jesus.’
“At that point I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I repeated something I’d read in the Bible years before. It was the 23rd Psalm; I can’t guarantee my words were in order, but it worked and suddenly my fear went. “Later I found out that my wonderful sister, a deeply spiritual person, when told what had happened to her baby brother, immediately phoned her minister, who got every member of a Seventh-day Adventist church to pray for her dying brother. That done, she got in her car and drove to the Cairns hospital.”
Terry says that in his coma he remembers walking through darkness. “There were no trees, no walls, no streets—nothing but darkness. I looked at myself and I was dressed in a white robe. Also, walking through the darkness, I noticed a thick fog around my ankles. Off in the distance was a tiny light. Coming from the light, I heard the gentlest voice call my name, beckoning me. For three days I walked toward that light, drawn by the voice of an angel. At the end of the third day I was just one metre from the light; the voice was still calling me, softly. I hesitated for a moment, then stepped into the light.”
At that instant Terry’s eyes flickered open. He awoke in a hospital bed, hooked to a life-support machine. The angel’s voice he had walked toward for those three days simply said, “Hello. Do you know who I am?”
“Yes,” Terry rasped, his voice impeded by the intubating tube, “you’re my sister.”
An attending nurse activated an emergency beeper that sounded an alarm on a doctor’s belt somewhere in the hospital. He came running into the room within 20 seconds. After gently removing the plastic tubes pumping oxygen into Terry’s lungs, he asked him his name. A soft reply came back, “Terry.”
“Can you turn your head, left or right?”
He tried, but couldn’t.
The doctor said, “Can you lift your arms?”
Once again, he couldn’t.
Then walking to the end of the bed the doctor prodded Terry’s feet with a pin. When Terry didn’t respond, shaking his head, he said, “Terry will be paralysed from the neck down; I’m sorry.”
The doctor left, leaving Terry’s sister to contemplate the terrible news. Then in measured tones she asked, “Do you remember your motorbike?”
“No.”
“Do you remember your accident?”
Once again, “No.”
Just then Terry’s mother entered, crying gently. She squeezed his foot with her hand and said “Hello, Son.”
“Who’s this woman?” Terry asked his sister.
“What did he say?” gasped his mother.
She said, “Don’t worry, Mum. He won’t remember things for awhile.”
At his bedside the next day, she asked Terry to squeeze her hand. He tried and tried, and eventually managed a small grip. She was ecstatic. The next day she asked him to move his legs. After some time, he finally moved them about 10 centimetres. “Thank you, Jesus,” she sighed, then, “I have to go home now, Terry. You keep trying, OK!”
Terry stayed in hospital for a few more weeks then went home. After months of rehabilitation, his memory slowly returned, with every painful detail of his old life.
“Physios, specialist doctors and Centrelink said I’d never be able to do a normal day’s work again,” says Terry. “So they put me on a disability pension for the rest of my life. I also had my long-time question answered—there is life after death! But then I had to make a choice: return to my criminal life or walk in favour with God.”
But then something amazing happened that helped him make up his mind. He crossed paths with a beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed psychologist, who was intrigued by what little she knew of Terry’s lifestyle. She was employed by the Queensland Justice Department. Opposites attract, and they fell in love.
“Because of my past, we had to leave Cairns in order to have a life together. She only knew the tip of the iceberg about my life, but most criminals in Cairns knew her. So we left Cairns, married and had two children.
“Nobody, not my friends or even family knew I had married until a year after we were wed. We were happily married for six years, but then, because of factors beyond my control, we separated. Once again I was crushed and I found myself seeking solitude in God’s Word. If you read the words of Jesus, you’re on the right track.
“And so today I worship God with my life turned around, my sins forgiven. In the Bible Jesus says, ‘The stone rejected by all, shall become my chief cornerstone,’ and, ‘A prostitute will get to heaven before a rich man!’ And if God can turn an ice-cold criminal and forgive him, how easy would it be for Mr or Mrs Average with no history to find eternal peace?
“Today, when problems arise, as a street kid, I could fix them in 10 seconds. But that’s not what Jesus wants. For me, it’s hard to be a Christian, and I still make mistakes, but I’m forgiven. Life is so much easier and worthwhile when you walk with God.”
* In order to shield Terry and family members from his past, Terry’s given name only is used.
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