The Nugget:
Psa 34:4 I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
My Comment:
Thirty-one years ago on this very anniversary date, March 13, 1986, I was very unexpectedly on all the news reports, radio and TV. I was shot in the head at point-blank range by an unknown assailant wielding a nine millimeter handgun.
The force of the shot knocked me flat on my face in the mud and snow melt of the Southeastern High School teacher parking lot. The force of my fall broke my safety glasses. The assailant demanded my wallet when I “came to,” ears still ringing. I refused to give it to him. I gave him the $33 in cash I had in my wallet. The man remarked, “This is all the cash you teachers carry on you?”
By that time the electronics teacher walking from the bus stop saw me being accosted by the robber. I yelled, “I’ve been shot.” The drafting teacher just then drove in the parking lot. The robber ran to his van, and the drafting teacher accompanied by the electronics teacher attempted to pursue the vehicle. At least they were able to get the license plate number. But it turned out, like usual, to be a stolen vehicle.
In the meantime the Latin teacher helped me into the school building to the office. The gym department head called 911 to secure an ambulance. He also attempted to stop my bleeding. The gym department head and the science teacher Mr. Hackett escorted me to the awaiting ambulance. The students entering school jeered me repeatedly and laughed.
Mr. Hackett later rescued my teaching materials prepared at my own expense out of my locked classroom closet. I picked them up at his law office some time later. He told me that he decided to quit teaching right then because he was disgusted and shocked at the rude student behavior manifested when he assisted me to the ambulance. He told me of the reaction of the lady at the Board of Education who processed his resignation two weeks later. It turns out that she had been a student of mine when I taught at Cass Technical High School and remembered me well. I still remember her too. In any case, she was shocked at what happened to me and shocked at the reason Mr. Hackett gave for leaving teaching.
I was taken to the hospital by ambulance. The gym department head came immediately to see me in my hospital room. He had retrieved my broken glasses from the parking lot. He warned me that whoever it was who had shot me intended to kill me. He said, “No one shoots a person in the back of the head unless they intend to kill them.”
I left the hospital wearing a large turban-like compression bandage, in view of TV cameras. I was advised to avoid the media attention and not grant an interview at the time.
I was placed under the care of a doctor for the next four years. The doctor warned me not to return to teaching at that school, and not to return to teaching anywhere until he gave his authorization. He said if I tried to return without his clearance, he would have to take stronger measures to be sure I did not do so.
One of the teachers in my department wrote a nice letter, but also warned me not to return. The assistant Union Representative called me and warned me not to return because it was evident to her that I was an intended target.
One of my own students about three weeks before the incident seriously but frantically warned me after class one day that I must immediately leave teaching at that school or I would be killed. I took his warning with a “grain of salt” at the time, but it turns out he was right.
Some months later when I at last ventured into town and went to the barber shop for a haircut, the barber, who was a licensed gun dealer, while cutting my hair, turned white as a sheet. He exclaimed, “Jerry, what is this scar up the back of your head?” I told him of how I had been shot. He asked me if I knew what kind of weapon my assailant had used. I said I knew nothing about guns, but I surely remembered what it looked like, because when the shooter walked up behind me to shoot me, he first showed me the gun he was about to use. I kept walking, carrying my heavy briefcase, hoping to get in sight of the ROTC room windows which looked out onto the parking lot so someone might see me. That is as far as I got when I was shot.
I explained to my barber that I had identified the firearm by carefully looking through a fire arm catalog my brother-in-law showed me. It was a nine-millimeter handgun. The barber asked me if I had ever seen a nine-millimeter bullet. I told him I never had. He stopped right then and brought one to me as a souvenir. I still have it.
The barber then said to me, and everyone waiting in the barber shop, “You must have had guardian angels and God Himself watching over you. Most people don’t live to tell the story.”
I had completed about 20% of the typing task involved in creating my first book, The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. So once I was well enough to type, I continued the typing task.
There were major sources of anxiety through all this. My paychecks were sent to the wrong school, so there was a considerable delay in receiving what I had already earned. I was supposed to be able to draw upon my full bank of “sick days” after my “catastrophe days” were used up first. The school board refused to authorize the use of my “catastrophe days,” of which I had earned a considerable number by never being absent from school. I was not able to recoup those until just before I retired from teaching. So, to make a long story short, what pay I received came on a very erratic basis. I had a part of my paycheck deducted for savings in my Detroit Teachers’ Credit Union Account, and at one point the school board attempted to take those deposits back! Fortunately, my wife had already withdrawn the money by mail, and I received a negative balance report from the credit union. When I learned from the credit union that the Detroit Board of Education had attempted to withdraw my own money, I closed the account immediately after that, making quite a scene in polite English heard by the long line of teachers waiting in line behind me about the evident insecurity of any funds I had deposited with the Credit Union.
I was able to complete my work on The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge despite many discouragements and much duress at the time.
But for the Lord’s protection, I died 31 years ago today, on Thursday, March 13, 1986, at 7:15 am, leaving my wife a widow with two young children.
But through it all, I was greatly and repeatedly encouraged by Psalm 34:4, and found its associated cross references most encouraging, which is why I chose to share this verse today.
You will also find the cross references encouraging, so I shall share them immediately below:
I sought the Lord. +**Psa 9:10 note. Psa 18:6; *Psa 22:24; Psa 31:22; Psa 63:1; Psa 66:17; *Psa 77:1; Psa 77:2; Psa 116:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; +*Psa 119:10, Gen 32:9, 1Sa 30:6, +*1Ch 16:11 note. *2Ch 20:3, Ezr 6:21, Job 5:8, *Isa 26:9, Jon 2:2, *Mat 7:7, +*Luk 11:9, *2Co 12:8; *2Co 12:9, *Heb 5:7.
and he heard me. Psa 3:4; Psa 18:6; Psa 22:24; +*Psa 27:7 (T1434). Psa 31:22; Psa 86:7; +**Psa 99:6; Psa 116:1-6; Psa 138:3, +*Exo 3:7, Pro 10:24, +*Dan 10:12, Jon 2:2, *Heb 5:7, +*1Jn 3:22.
and delivered. Psa 34:17; Psa 34:19, Psa 4:8; Psa 18:2; Psa 30:1; Psa 32:6; *Psa 50:15; Psa 91:15; *Psa 103:14; Psa 107:19, Gen 33:4, Exo 18:4, +*1Co 10:13, 2Co 7:6, 2Ti 3:11.
me. +**Psa 40:17.
from all. Psa 27:1, 2; Psa 46:2; *Psa 56:3; +Psa 118:6, %+Gen 19:30, 1Sa 27:1, +2Ch 20:3 (T1336). +*Job 3:25, +**Pro 22:3, Song of Solomon 3:8, +*Isa 8:12; +*Isa 12:2 (T814). Isa 66:4, +*Jer 10:5; Jer 41:18, Zep 3:13, Mar 4:40, +*Luk 12:4; +*Luk 12:7, Joh 14:27, Rom 8:31; Rom 12:21, *2Co 7:5; *2Co 7:6, Php 1:20, +**2Ti 1:7, 1Jn 3:21.
my fears. Psa 23:4; +Psa 27:1; Psa 56:3, 4; Psa 64:1; Psa 112:7, +Gen 15:1; Gen 26:24, 1Sa 21:12; 1Sa 27:1, Pro 3:25, Isa 41:10, Dan 10:12, +*2Co 1:4, Col 3:15, Heb 13:6, 1Pe 5:7, 1Jn 4:18.