Have you ever been dying to do something, but never knowing what it was you were dying to do? Well, when I went to sleep on my motor cycle riding down Victoria Road Parramatta, it happened to me.

About 1.5 years after my accident, I was still in brain injury ward 24B at Lidcombe Hospital, I was only able to hobble around and move one arm. I began to coach an ambulance driver who used to drive me home one weekend a month. He needed coaching in Maths and English for his Higher School Certificate.

One day he said to me: “You would have to be one of the luckiest blokes alive!”

“How do you work that out!?” I replied.

He said that he knew the two ambulance drivers who attended my accident. They were two ace Paramedics that were never put on together because they were so good, and they liked to spread their skills around. “That shift they had no choice but to put them on together and if they hadn’t been on together, you John would still be dead!” I had spent 6 days totally unconscious, then 3 months and 16 days in limbo, unaware of who, where or what I was.

There were 4 visions that I can remember whilst being out to it in that first 3 months. Three of them were general hospital routines; being showered by a nurse, being pushed around in a wheelchair, but then after each vision, nothing. Completely blank. One vision though I can remember most distinctly. I was asked by a voice behind me to take a look at myself, and what I thought was me looked down on myself. Seeing my actions, I was filled with disgust and failure. I was so puzzled, how unemotional I was at being so judgmental of myself that it stuck hard in my brain. At that stage I knew nothing of a spiritual self.

Years later I attended a Revelation seminar. I was not a “Churchy” but received a post box handout about the seminar and noticed this group were discussing something that included “Death and Dying”. I must go to this I thought. The week before doing “Death and Dying” I went to the minister and told him that he may have some interesting questions from me on the next weeks topic and told him my story. He replied to me: “Very interesting John! Go home and read Matthew 12:36,37. You may find what you’re looking for there.”

When I read it, the power of God hit me like a 20lb sledge hammer! I looked back through my life after the accident and saw where Jesus had been leading and coaching me over almost impossible deeds to reach a stage where Christianity deserved serious consideration. I studied more about this Christianity thing by attending this Church and realised that God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit that was now alive in me was a mate that could not be denied. Baptism was my expression of faith and thanks to Jesus, that immediately followed.

John