 |
|
WHEN STONE MELTS A shootout can turn a guy mean. It did Dave. He had graduated from the Police Academy a week before when he and his partner walked into a stickup at a hotdog stand on 6 th Ave. and Kalamath Street. They un holstered their guns and shouted at the guy to drop his. He didn't. He shot Dave's partner and Dave put a couple of bullets through him. Dave says, "He didn't die and neither did my partner, but it was pretty traumatic just after getting out of the academy, and it really turned me against society. I can say I became one to the most hateful, hardest men you've ever met. I figured everyone who wasn't a policeman belonged in jail and my goal was to put them there. I had no love for people whatsoever, they were all scum to me." In fact, the Denver Police Dept. had to remove Dave from the streets and assigned him to the SWAT team with other tough guys. He was accepted into the boxing team where he was boxing kind of semi-pro. He began to have eye problems which were caused by high blood pressure: 240 over 120, bursting the blood vessels in his eyes. Something had to be done quickly. He was given medication and quit boxing, but it was too late. He lost the dominance in his right eye and the vision in his left eye was impaired; bad news for a SWAT Team cop who had to survive under fire and be an excellent marksman. So, Dave had to pretend he could see normally every moment of every working day. The problem was even more aggravating because he was driving from Elizabeth Colorado, about 50 miles one way. Being isolated on his little farm didn't help either, and there were a lot of things he couldn't do. They gave him weekly steroid shots in his best eye, with no improvement, and it wasn't something he wanted to continue the rest of his life, all of which was structured around police work. He had spent several years on the Denver Police Department, and police work was all he knew. Now, with the sight problem, he had no assurance of the future at all, and the more he thought about that, the deeper he sank into despair. The fear that he'd be fired was present every day and the worry was his only companion at night. No one would hire a cop who couldn't see, and he started to consider suicide. If he lost his job, he'd loose his life anyway. There would be nothing else. He endured the fear and aggravation for about a year, then one of those little incidents happened that would eventually totally rearrange his life. Dave's parents were having a combination garage sale their neighbors and he was asked to help. They had a daughter, Angela, his age who was also helping. Dave was attracted to her and secured her phone number from his parents and called for a date. She said, "No." That was the wrong answer. It made no sense; "What's the problem," Came out of Dave. "I don't go out with men who are not Christians." "I'm Catholic." This was a little like begging to Dave, and what she said next was just as unreal as the "no." he'd just heard "You don't understand. I'm a born-again Christian and I would never date a man who is not a born again Christian." Dave said, "look, I'm a Catholic, I know God." She then told him he was clueless, and he knew he'd met one of those born-again meatheads. The challenge was set. He called Angela almost every day that week and finally she invited him to a church hay-ride, offering to meet him there. Dave agreed, but had no intention of going on any sissified Christian hay-ride. Instead, he planned to call her a day before with the excuse that he had to work. He would suggest they go for coffee afterward. Strangely though, he couldn't get that call made. So, Dave reluctantly dressed. Then drove all the way to South Parker to meet her and make the ultimate degrading sacrifice of riding in a wagon of hay with a bunch of wimps and goons, probably scum who needed to be jailed for stupidity. Tonight they'd see a real man, one who could press more weight than two normal men can pick up. They'd want to stay out of his way. What he saw was beyond his ability to imagine and totally outside the experience of this son of alcoholic parents. Adult people were standing around a campfire, holding hands - men holding hands with men, and they were all singing, being happy, like a big family who deeply enjoyed and loved each other. Dave thought he loved his brother, but they never sang together or held hands. That would have been weird, but this wasn't. It was natural and happy; It was deeply touching, even heaven-like. Angela introduced him to several people, surprisingly, all of them likeable. Christian hay-rides can actually be great. The word scum didn't come to mind even one time. And not one of these people belonged in jail or needed to be taught any lessons. In fact, they had something to teach Dave, something he wanted.- a lot. As they were leaving, Dave invited Angela to go for coffee with him, and again, he heard, "no," even though his intentions were half honorable. "She wouldn't even get into the car with me," Dave stopped for a red light at Santa Fe and Alameda and she pulled up beside him. There was a restaurant on the corner, so he rolled down his window and suggested they stop for coffee. She agreed. Dave told her that he needed to know more and asked if he might go to church with her. She agreed to that too, and once again they met at the church because she wouldn't ride with him. He couldn't have guessed what would happen. He says, "We were standing in the back of the sanctuary. They sang 'The Old Rugged Cross,' and I began to cry. I hadn't cried, never, ever, and now I couldn't stop. Angela tugged on me and asked, 'are you all right?' I couldn't answer, but I was thinking, I'm not; I have no clue what is going on here. And when she found out I didn't own a Bible, she gave me one! "I went home and cleaned house. I had a brand-new home in Littleton. My brother and I, had just finished installing a huge bar in the basement and I'd just stocked it with three hundred dollars worth of booze. I poured every ounce of it down the drain." Dave threw out magazines and broke every record. Then he picked up his Bible and read all night. A week later he knew that the hay ride and church meeting had been no accident. God had called him into the ministry. He continued to read The Bible at every opportunity and finished it in two months. Six weeks before finishing the Bible he was enrolled in Bible College. He realized that the call of God had began when he was a child. Some kids run away from home. For Dave it was running to home. His mother and father were both alcoholics and his dad was a cruel, violent atheist. There was a Catholic monastery nearby and that's where Dave's mother would find him whenever he bolted. It was a gentle, loving place, a place where he felt at home. And Sundays were good too, because his parents dropped him off at a nearby church and picked him up. Dave wanted, more than anything in the world, to become a priest. But that hope was soon stripped from him when they moved, and his oasis of kindness was taken from him. That was the last contact he had with any church, but one thing apparently lay buried out of sight through all the intervening years. Dave had acquired a profound love for God. Now it surfaced like a pent-up geyser erupting through the crust of his calloused life. The next day he showed up at work, carrying a Bible, and talking about the love of God and salvation, with 32 of the meanest, hardest men in Denver watching and hearing in disbelief. The result for some of them was an instant change from friendship to hatred. The rest hoped he would eventually come to his senses, but he never budged. Instead, some of them eventually changed. The change was always profound. Before that, they'd go to the old hotels and empty buildings and harass the homeless men. Afterward, God instilled a tender love for the homeless, the prostitutes and the lost. Sometimes, Dave would sit in his patrol car and actually weep for them. "I'd pray every single night before going to work and beg God not to let me hurt anybody. For the four years I was in Bible college I never had to do anything hurtful. It was the same for the entire Denver SWAT team. So the Lord honored my prayers. He also took care of my high blood pressure. It's now below normal, even under stress." Now, Dave pastors Faith Bible Chapel West. You won't be surprised to learn that they pick-up and feed homeless people every Sunday morning and then bring them into church to give them hope and a box of food if they want it. It is surprising how God can fill our needs in ways we cannot imagine, when we just crack the door for Him. It's in the Bible: "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21 "Exceedingly abundantly" is like wishing for a refreshing drink, and getting a geyser of life. And speaking of "the power that works within us," The change would not have happened if the no" had been "yes." It's amazing how God can use a single little two letter word to melt stone. |
