The Story of Bill

On Saturday afternoon, around 1:30 PM, I was walking through my apartment complex to grab by mail and saw a man struggling to carry some items into an apartment.  Naturally, I asked him if I could assist him.  We carried the items into the house.  I thought that’s all he had until he asked if I could help him carry something else into the apartment from a UHaul.  I walked over to find a truck packed with stuff.  The gentleman shared with me that he was helping this elderly lady move in after her grandsons had forced her out of their home.  Anyway, I helped him carry the items into the apartment.  Along the way, we chatted and got onto the topic of Jesus.  He started going on and on about His passion for the Lord. 

Long story short and feeling bad for this man and for the elderly woman, and since finals were over and I had nothing going on, I felt tugged to help them out.  We traveled over to the woman’s storage unit and I continued to help the gentleman, Bill, load furniture into the truck. We went back to the apartment complex and unloaded the furniture.  It was about 5:30 PM by this time.  Everything had been unloaded and I was about to head back home when Bill and Chris, the elderly lady, insisted that they take me to dinner for helping.  I told them it was not big deal (I mean, seriously…) but they persisted.  On the way over to a city called Kemah, about 30-40 minutes Southeast of Houston, Bill was playing some worship music that has inspired Him over the years.  He then began to shuffle through some CDs he had and found a sermon/message he had shared with the congregation of the church he attends.  He began to play it, but about 5 minutes in stopped, and told me he couldn’t let me hear his testimony.  So, he took out the CD.  However, within about two minutes, he decided he was going to share it with me.

He explained that when he was seventeen, a non-Christian man, living in Northern Houston, he had two children with a young lady.  When his daughter was five and he was twenty-two, he split up with the lady he was seeing and had had the two daughters with.  She ended up remarrying.  Well, it turns out that the man she remarried had molested Bill’s five-year-old daughter.  Some other events perspired, but ultimately Bill found the man that had molested his daughter and he killed him.  He shared with me that he spent twenty-two years in federal prison, but at about 14-15 years into his sentence, had a miraculous change of heart that completely altered his life.  He began a faith-based dorm in the prison, whereby he led a group of fifty-six other men to come to know the Lord.  This is also where he had met Chris, the elderly lady we were helping.  She was a prison missionary and had met Bill upon starting the faith-based dorm. 

Anyway, Bill finished sharing his testimony, we had dinner, and then before we all left Bill shared this powerful prayer about reconciliation, grace, forgiveness, love, and peace.  As I listened to Darrell’s sermon all I could think about was bloodshed.  To be perfectly honest, Bill’s testimony freaked me out.  I was thinking to myself, “I just met this man.  Is he really changed? What if I say something wrong?” 

But, the blood that Bill had shed years ago had been so evidently washed by the blood of the Lamb shed even longer ago.  That fear lasted within me for a brief amount of time before realizing we all commit murder.  Maybe not in such a drastic manner, but we murder the very essence of our nature on a daily basis and negate the blood of the Lamb as significant.  We begin to shed our own blood and the blood of our brothers and sisters, discounting THE FACT that the blood has already been shed.  Bill was an example for me of a man who had begun to live His life with the realization, understanding and belief that “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing:” that is to say; the blood has already been shed.  Step into it and be cleansed.