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As told to by Chuck and Sharon Betters. 

I knew how to get what I wanted in life: I was a former high school and college athlete and a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate; my Air Force career was exemplary, and I had become a successful business owner and top sales professional. Success was my signature. But there was a powerful undercurrent of secret sin in my life: sexual immorality. The environment of my workplace made it easy to satisfy my desires through numerous adulterous relationships. I knew that what I was doing was wrong because I had been raised with Christian values, but I still felt trapped and addicted. In the midst of this darkness, God placed a "light": my barber, Charles. Every time he cut my hair, he read from his Bible and he prayed with me. As much as I looked forward to our prayer time and as close as I became to Charles over the years, I never shared with him the pain and overwhelming sense of guilt that adultery was causing in my life. And so I did nothing; I was caught in a snare of my own making, and I successfully kept it hidden from everyone…everyone, that is, but God.

So it was that God removed His hand of protection from me for just a moment, a split second, the day I collided with a truck while flying along at nearly 50 mph on my motorcycle. Suddenly the strong, healthy body of which I had always been so proud was completely shattered. The paramedics told my wife, Patty, that I was the worst motorcycle accident survivor that they had ever seen. My specialists, at a loss over the severity of my injuries, even encouraged my friend Charles, who had immediately come to see me, to pray for me.

God performed miracles that night in the emergency room. As Charles led Patty in prayer, glass fragments that the doctors were unable to remove suddenly disappeared. A week after the plastic surgeon described for us the reparative surgery needed to restore my broken cheekbone; he was shaking his head in amazement as the remarkable healing of my repaired face. Later, when my doctors removed the bandages from my legs, they expected to begin making the skin grafts usually required by massive infection. Instead, they were stunned to discover just how much the lacerations had already healed.

Six weeks in traction brought me face to face with Jesus Christ and what His death on the cross really meant for me. God spoke to me, particularly through the book of Romans, to show me my sin. I asked Him to forgive me and to help me turn away from my selfishness and the sinful habits of my former lifestyle. At that moment both joy and sadness washed over me – joy for my new life, sadness for how it must have grieved the Lord to have had to smash the body of someone He had so lovingly created.

I had read somewhere that a shepherd would sometimes break the leg of a lamb intent on running away. Unless the animal was literally forced to lie still, it would never stop wandering off and would eventually be killed by predators. While the lamb was healing, the shepherd would tenderly care for and carry the injured animal and, in turn, the lamb would form a deep, lasting bond with the shepherd. Once it had fully recovered, the lamb would never wander away again. God, I believe, was acting as the faithful Shepherd, one who must sometimes break the leg of a sheep that is intent on running away. Each pain-filled moment I cried out for God’s comfort. I would feel His nearness in the night as I closed my eyes to sleep. Peace with God finally brought rest to my restless soul. In shattering my body, that accident also shattered the idol that had blinded me for so long to Christ's love and the love of my wife. God not only opened my own eyes to His forgiveness; Patty, too, committed her life to Christ on the night of the accident. My love for my wife deepens every day, and our marriage is now strong and growing.

Even though God has forgiven my sin, the scars of my selfish lifestyle, like the scars in my physical body, remain with me always. Memories of that former bondage have given me a heart for prison inmates who are trapped by the same bars of sin. The physical aches and pains I still endure are a constant reminder that helps me resist temptation. Our sons were very young when God turned my life around through this accident. They are now teenagers and are better equipped to resist temptation; Patty and I have honestly shared the details of my past with them, as well as our testimony of God's redeeming love. Instead of longing for what I was, what I once had, I remember daily that God used my suffering to bring me to Himself. I have learned to thank Him when discomfort restricts my physical activities, for I know that my sufferings "are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed" in me (Romans 8:18).

By His grace, I now hold onto life loosely and pray that I will live each day left to me in a way that glorifies "the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who had been my Shepherd all my life to this day" (Genesis 48:15). My prayer for our sons is that "the Angel who has delivered me from all harm" will bless these boys as well (Genesis 48:16).

Excerpted from Treasures of Faith, Living Boldly in View of God’s Promises, pages 105 – 108. For more on living by faith in a broken world, read Treasures of Faith by Chuck and Sharon Betters.