Tremendous peace
On a cold and wet Tuesday afternoon, on 11 February 2003, I slowly opened my eyes to the scene of paramedics, doctors and fireman busily moving around me. My vision was hazy and my back and right leg in agony.
In my disjointed memory, I recalled being at a great height, yet I was now lying on the cold, hard concrete of the warehouse yard where I worked, convinced that I was about to die!
I prayed to God knowing that, if my life ended now, I would spend eternity with him. I was raised in a Christian family in inner London and from my earliest days had been taken along to church.
Growing up in a happy family where God was worshipped and the Bible read, I knew all the famous Bible stories and enjoyed my childhood. At some point during my early teens, or possibly younger, I came to realise that neither my parents’ faith nor my own knowledge of the Bible had brought me any peace with God.
Personal relationship
I began to feel a great weight of guilt for all of those bad things which I had done and feared standing before God as I was. On a Sunday night in the solitude of my bedroom, I cried out to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and trusted that through his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead my sins had been forgiven.
Those looking on may not have seen a huge change in my life. However, something had changed inside. My desires had changed; I wanted to pray and read the Bible and for the first time I felt that I was truly in a personal relationship with God.
Like all teenagers, I made many mistakes as I grew up, but God continued to love me despite my failings. After my A-levels I began working in a food warehouse and continued there until that life-changing day in February.
I had gone to work that morning thinking it would be an ordinary day. It took a dramatic twist however at 12:04pm when, in a poor attempt at a practical joke, someone lifted me 25 feet into the air on a forklift truck and then began to drive around.
Unfortunately the whole machine toppled over throwing me onto the ground. My back was broken, my right leg had broken in two and my foot had been crushed, yet through the pain came a tremendous peace. I was at peace with God.
I knew then, as I know now, that my place in heaven is assured not through mere religion or churchgoing, or even through trying my best, but through the death and resurrection of Jesus my Saviour and my friend.
Tim Whitton
