The following testimony is from Bill Busshaus, a dear friend of CCW president Jim Elliff.
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Like most children in the America of my youth, I had some aspect of religion in my upbringing. Although my father showed no interest in spiritual things, my mother was a practicing Catholic, and made sure we participated in the normal functions of the church. I was baptized as an infant, received my first communion, and was confirmed in the Catholic church. I have to say in truth that none of this gave me any inclination to love God or follow Him. I guess that placed me in the normal range of the vast majority of my peers. We went to church, but had no thoughts about God the rest of the week.
If the first and greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength,” then I was a great transgressor of the law. My first love was sports. I did well in school, but only because it came rather easy to me, not because I had any enjoyment in it. My greatest love was football. I performed well enough academically and played football well enough to be recruited by the US Naval Academy. Although on full scholarship, I only advanced to quarterback for the “meat squad” of the Naval Academy freshman team. The meat squad learned the offense of the team we were playing that week and ran their offense as practice for our first team defense. I wasn’t overly excited about this level of achievement, but it kept me on the training tables which provided a little relief from the rigors of the regular Academy dining experience.
In March of 1972, after my first full semester at the Academy, I was involved in an automobile accident that left me permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Not only have I never played football since then, but I have never walked since that day. I spent the next thirteen months in various hospitals recovering from the accident and learning to live as normal a life as possible from the wheelchair. I must admit that initially my thoughts turned back to the God I had heard about as a child. When I discovered that God was not going to hear my prayers and do what I requested (restore my health) I quickly concluded that one of two things must be true: there is no God, or He doesn’t care about me. With a firm atheistic, or at best agnostic, mindset I began my attempts at making life as pleasant as possible under the circumstances.
I discovered very quickly that life from the wheelchair was more difficult and limiting than I had initially thought. This produced in me a deep depression to the point of desiring to end my own life — something I unsuccessfully attempted three times within the first several years of my injury.
Upon release from the hospital, I decided to resume my college studies within the state university system in Florida, my home state. While in college I continued to follow the crowd and lived my life free from the moral restraints of family, not to mention God. This moral liberty, however, did not provide the benefits imagined. I grew more downcast and apathetic about life in general. As the initial thrill of living on my own and doing just about whatever I pleased wore off, I began to realize that this life did not have much to offer a guy confined to a wheelchair, so I thought again of taking my life.
I do not wish to bother you with all the details of my life at this time. Suffice it to say that the more I realized the emptiness of my carefree liberty, the more I indulged those liberties. Looking back this seems very strange. One would think that having tasted of the shallowness of unrestrained living one would question its value and seek for something more meaningful. But the exact opposite was true. What began as a simple and natural attempt at self-satisfaction, ended up with an ever-increasing participation in the things that I knew were not contributing to my enjoyment of life. If you will, permit me to make a spiritual observation here: this is what the Bible calls slavery to sin. We think something will bring fulfillment, but it actually robs us of all life’s riches. But let me get back to the story.
Before graduating from the University of Florida in 1976 I began considering several career options. My field of study was business with a major in real estate. I found an old building in downtown Gainesville, did a little market analysis, renovated the structure, and opened a nightclub. Amidst all of this enterprise I still had great struggles as to the value of life. I remember pumping myself up emotionally in order to go to “happy hour” and appear happy for the patrons of my establishment. I began wondering if the professionals who frequented my place were faking it as much as I was.
At this time two things happened that God seems to have used to get my attention. I did not use the entire building that I had renovated. I leased out one section to a local architect for office space. One day I was notified that he had taken his own life. This alarmed me, for he had everything I thought would make one content. He had achieved the life I was pursuing. The second thing took place only a few months after the suicide of my new friend. I was at a surprise birthday party given in my honor in January of 1977 at the house of my manager. As the night wore on and the party got looser, some joints began to be passed around. Just as the rolled marijuana came to me, my father happened to enter the door unexpectedly. I did not know he was in town. I looked at him, he looked at me, I unashamedly continued what I was doing, and he turned around and walked out of the house. Although everyone in that room thought I was my own man, and that I had coolly demonstrated my freedom from parental censure, something inside me said I had reached the bottom. My own thoughts were telling me I was wrong. I had a strong sense of real moral guilt—not merely guilt feelings, but genuine legal guilt. Don’t misunderstand, my father had a very low moral standard himself. It was not merely a matter of falling short of his expectations. I was soon to discover that something much more fundamental was taking place.
With this strong sense of moral guilt added to my physical problems, I again thought seriously of taking my life. One day I awoke and decided to take an overdose of a prescribed sleeping pill. Making my way to the bathroom to get the pills I had to pass by a bookshelf that was in my bedroom. Looking up to the shelf I noticed a book that a young girl had given me in the summer of 1974. It was a New Testament. I had the book for two and a half years, but had never read it. I picked it up that morning before getting to the medicine cabinet.
As I began to read I noticed that I had never heard much of what I was reading. A lot of it was different than what I was taught as a child. All of it was different than my self-made opinions about Jesus! One of the first passages that stood out to me was from the gospel of Matthew:
Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)
This offer of rest for my soul seemed very inviting. But it would be another false hope, just like everything else, unless this man was indeed who he claimed to be. But before I received this promised rest there was something God had to show me. The invitation contained in this verse is to the “weary and heavy-laden”. I knew that I was weary with life, and that my burdens were indeed heavy, but the source of that heaviness was still unknown to me.
I read through the New Testament in a few days, and then began reading it again. One day as I sat in my apartment pondering the things I had been reading, a great sense of guilt came over me. Not merely guilt feelings, but a genuine sense that my lifestyle was rebellion against God and his law. I did not know how to identify it at that time, but now I realize that God was “convincing me of sin.” I saw with great clarity that the source of my weariness with life was not my physical handicap. The source was my own sin and turning from God. At the same moment the thought “Christ died for our sins” came to mind, and everything became clear. Who Jesus is, why he had to come and die, what was the true meaning of his resurrection — all this made perfect sense.
That day I became a Christian. I believed in him who died for my sins and rose again. At that moment the burden was lifted. I began to follow Jesus out of love for what he had done for me. The things that I once enjoyed I now saw as the very things that brought on the misery and despair. All those Christians that I once considered strange were now my newly-found brothers and sisters. From that day forward Christ has been all to me, and following him the delight of my heart.