Me: I like that message.

Prodigal: I thought you would.

Me: Here is one that you might like.

This is by Julian B. Motheral

Dear Someone Out There:

I wonder if you remember the night of June 9,1967, in Mayfield, Kentucky. I promise you I will never forget it.

You see, until that night, I could walk on moonlit nights with my wife. Until that night, I could run and play with my 14-month-old son. Until that night, I could support my family. I have been unable to do any of these things now for almost ten long years–ever since you put a bullet in my spine.

I’ll never forget how nervous you were that night in the service station. The barrel of the pistol you held in you hand was shaking so hard. I remember saying to myself, “You’re mighty nervous. This must be your first job.”

I can’t recall all the details of what happened after I gave you my day’s receipts. I seem to remember picking up your un from the floor where you had dropped it and struggling with you. Did you give me the concussion when you hit me with the pop bottle? Or have I just pieced these things together in an effort to explain all that happened that night.

I do remember being shoved toward the back room with my left arm twisted behind my back. I remember looking up at the clock as you shoved me into the back room. And I still can almost feel the gun barrel as you knocked me in the head again, and I fell to the floor.

I was through fighting. I lay there on the floor hoping you would leave. Why did you feel you had to bend over, place the gun barrel under my left side and try to kill me?

I remember that crashing sound and the blinding flash of light. Then darkness. When I woke up, you were gone. I tried to get to my feet, but from my neck down there was no feeling whatsoever. There was no pain at all. I was totally paralyzed. I was totally helpless. I was dying.

Only a few minutes had passed when three young boys came in and found me. I thought I had been screaming for help. They said I was only whispering.

I don’t remember the 150-mile ambulance ride to the Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis. I only remember in bits and pieces the 18 days I stayed there.

My 17-year-old wife had to face the doctors and be told, “We cannot remove the bullet. There is nothing we can do.” She brought me home to die.

I relived that night of the robbery over and over, and I would often awaken my family with my screams. I couldn’t even feed myself. I was a vegetable.

As I lay there in the hospital bed in the back bedroom of my parents’ home, I knew the feeling of crushing despair.

I remember once, when I had just taken 14 of my daily 42 pills, I looked over to the table by my bedside. On top of the table lay a pair of shiny scissors. If only I could reach them and plunge them into my heart it would be all over. Then I realized I couldn’t lift my hands to grab them. I couldn’t even kill myself.

Did you know I carried your bullet in my neck for over four months? Finally, I was taken to the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, and on November 3, 1967, the .22 caliber slug was removed from the center of my spinal column.

After the bullet was removed I returned to Mayfield. The doctors in Louisville told me I would never walk, that the most I could hope for was eventually to sit on the bedside with a special back brace and possibly be able to feed myself. I wanted more. I felt God could give me more. If left Louisville against doctor’s orders.

With a very painful scar on the back of my neck where the bullet had been removed, I began the long road back to normal life. If I wanted to turn in bed, I had to be rolled over and a pillow propped behind my back so I could remain on my side. I could sit in a chair for only a few minutes at a time, and then I had to be tied in place to remain upright.

I would have my wife and my parents roll me to the back yard and place me on wrestling mats laid on the ground. I would try to crawl and drag myself along the ground, and although it would take me 30 minutes to crawl 30 feet, at least I was moving on my own.

Now the pain was to begin. Pain such as I had never before experienced. My physical therapist told me I would begin to have all kinds of weird feelings in my arms, and later in my legs. He was right.

Even today, though I am now able to use a walker and drive my car with special hand controls, I still have little sense of touch in my hands and arms and now in my legs. Yet, there are times when I feel as though someone has just drenched me in scalding water. At other times my arms will itch until I feel I am going to climb the walls. And the constant pain I carry in my arms and hands helps me to pray.

I promised God, a few months after you shot me, that if He would only let me have enough feeling to know pain, I would never again complain. Even pain was better than no feeling at all. I’m afraid a few times I have failed to keep my promise. But then, I try to stop and realize where He has brought me from.

Since that night I have had a chance to really search through the Book I thought I knew so well. I found in the Bible there were truths I had never before seen. And when I applied to my life what those truths taught me, I was no longer a hopeless cripple, but a cripple with hope.

Do I forgive you for putting a bullet in my spine? By myself I couldn’t do it. Will power will not always work. But when I remembered Jesus on the cross. I found that I could pray as He would: “Father, forgive the boy who shot me, for he didn’t realize what he was doing.”

I believe that, and although I do not know your name, and my never know it, this letter is written to you. I want you to know you need have no fear of retaliation from me. With His help, I have forgiven you. I knew no other way to reach you. But know this. Not one day goes by that I don’t pray for you, that you may know the peace and happiness I now know.

Exodus 20:16

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org