Many times Satan tried to kill me but God had mercy on me

Many times Satan tried to kill me

But God had mercy on me

Brendan Mc Crossan

Many times Satan tried to kill me

But God had mercy on me

Brendan Mc Crossan

From birth

Many times Satan tried to kill me

But God had mercy on me

Brendan Mc Crossan 13-10-2011

One

When I was born my mother told me I was a very sickly child, within a year I had almost every disease that children get, and my aunt Bernie told me very often my parents and my aunties sat up with me through the night praying I would survive; apparently I was very weak and no one thought that I would live till I even got to one years old, but God had other plans for me he gave me his grace and mercy and I survived obviously. When I was nine I took rheumatic fever and I almost died from it because it affected my heart and there were nights that my parents would awake with me choking on blood as I suffered from nose bleeds and was lying on my back swallowing the blood and almost choking to death many, many times, I can remember some of those times as I spluttered trying to breath, as I couldn’t move because I was paralysed.

Twice more I took rheumatic fever and was left paralysed both times. I could remember when I was about eleven I walked in a pond to chase the ducks and the water came over the top of my water boots and I sat in school freezing and with wet feet and at lunch time I went home to get my lunch and I remember standing at the piano in our living room and went to walk but discovered that I couldn’t walk and I told my parents that I could not walk and they put me to bed and sent for the doctor who again told them that I was very ill with rheumatic fever again and I was administered panadol tablets for the pain, as the pain I had was unbearable, I could get no respite from it.

Later on at the age of thirteen I again took rheumatic fever again and again I was paralysed for a full year this time, I was in ferocious pain, and no matter what I done or took I could get no relief. I spent a full year lying upstairs in bed, and coming to the end of my illness I was allowed to sit by my bedroom window for little whiles, and was carried to the chair beside the window so that I could look out, there was no TV’s those days and I had a speaker connected to a radio from downstairs and I listened to a cowboy story every week called Matt Dillon, and that was on once a week and that was all I had to keep me occupied, now and then some friends were allowed to come visit with me, and one time we were playing cowboys and Indians and one of my friends climbed on top of the wardrobe to hide and the wardrobe came crashing down on me as I lay there paralysed, they were all told to leave and I never seen them again for a long time until after I got well again.

When I was allowed out to play again I couldn’t join in the games of football or cricket or any game that meant a lot of movement as I could not walk or run very well, now I can see that I have empathy for those who are paralysed or in pain as God used what Satan meant for death and pain to me for good for others later on and he does those things he uses what Satan meant for evil and he turns it to good for us later on.

Two

Bloody Sunday

It was a crisp morning as I joined all the people gathering for the civil rights march in Derry just outside the Telstar Bar in Creggan. We were marching for the right to one man one vote and for homes for Catholics as we were gerrymandered against by the protestant Unionist people who were in power in government.

As the march took off I walked along singing songs of freedom and travelled down Southway making our way down towards the Bogside, everyone was in good mood and the feeling was light with lots of camaraderie. At that time other members of the Catholic population were fighting on a different front against British rule and British army murders and tortures of prisoners, and a group took up arms against the army and became known as the Provisional Irish Republican army, the Provo’s, IRA, I had joined this group but on this march I was just marching as an ordinary Catholic looking for civil and human rights and the IRA were told to stand down on this day and they done so. There were thousands on this march and our Catholic politicians had asked the Provo’s and another branch of the IRA not to be there as they just wished for civil rights and no violence and both sides agreed and kept their word on that day.

Walking down William street the mood changed as we saw that the British army were out in a greater force than ever before and we could see that the Parachute Regiment was at the forefront of the soldiers, the day before this regiment attacked a peaceful march outside a prison where Catholic prisoners were kept and those soldiers began attacking men women and children using batons and their rifles as weapons and they injured a lot of people, so we knew that this regiment was know from their brutality, and had used it the day before and also whist they were stationed in Belfast; so when people saw them they were worried, and the feeling among the crowd changed from singing to quietness, a solemnity overcome every one, it was as if they could sense something evil present.

As I walked down William Street I looked over to my left and I noticed a soldier go down on one knee and take aim with his rifle and as I looked at him from a long distance I had an uncanny experience, I could see into his eyes and I knew he was going to kill me, at that moment I stepped back a bit and used an elderly man as a shield between me and that soldier and then shots rang out and a young man screamed out that he was shot and then more shots rang out and an older man was wounded and fell to the ground. That soldier that I made eye contact with shot those two men trying to kill them, the older man later died a week after bloody Sunday. It was impossible for me to see that soldier’s eyes as he was a very long distance away, it was an experience that God gave me, and may God forgive that soldier who murdered the older man and wounded the young man for I have.

Cutting a long story short, as we approached the barricade in Rossville Street all hell was let loose as members of the first Parachute regiment started shooting at some rioters who were stoning other soldiers at their check point, then the parachute regiment drove into the bogside area in their Humber armoured carriers scattering the crowds of thousands of civil rights demonstrators in every direction and then they jumped out of their vehicles and began shooting at the crowd who were running away killing thirteen and wounding fourteen men and women. On three occasions I was targeted and soldiers fired at me as I was running away, and at one time during this incident soldiers in an armoured scout car fired their browning machine gun at me as I ran across waste ground falling on top of a young woman who was lying behind a little wall, and she began screaming saying, ‘get him off me he’s dead,’ this was me she was talking about, then a woman opened her back door and screamed to get into her home and the people hiding behind this little wall all ran into the safety of her home where there was about forty or fifty people everywhere taking refuge in her home.

Just last year the British Government declared that the people were all murdered by the First Parachute regiment, and all murdered and wounded that day were innocent but as of today no

soldier has ever been charged with the murder of those thirteen people or with those wounded, even though the soldiers at the time in court admitted they killed so and so. And that is something I found hard to forgive at the time because I was not a Christian at the time but have long ago let go and have forgiven those soldiers.

Three

A weird experience

I was in Larne visiting with a nun friend who introduced me to the healing ministry. Just a short time before I went to Larne to visit Sr Augusta Maria, I gave my death to the lord , not many Christians know that they should give their death to the lord giving him lordship over when and how we die. The Lord accepted my offering, I know from something that happened but is not relevant to this story but is relevant to what I am about to share.

On my way home from my visit with Sr Augusta I was driving in the country about a half mile from a place called Dungiven, as I turned a corner, I saw before me a group of men dressed like policemen. One of them stood in the middle of the road with his hand on his gun and another hand upraised for me to stop. As I slowly approached him I noticed the other policemen and I saw that they were not carrying police issued weapons, but weapons that loyalist terrorist used and my heart sank as I realised that I had been stopped by a terrorist loyalist {protestant} group who had been killing Catholics dressed as policemen. I pulled up to the policeman in the middle of the road and stopped, he signalled to roll down my window, and roughly demanded my driving licence; I knew that my licence would let him know that I was a Catholic because of my address. He took my licence and moved to the rear of my car, I had an eerie experience of feeling a gun muzzle forced into the back of my neck, and I could feel the round cold barrel pressing savagely into my neck, I knew that this was impossible because the policeman stood at my rear window, and I could see him when I looked for a moment in my mirror, but I could feel his gun pressing into me, I knew I was going to die, and I bowed my head and committed my death to the lord saying, ‘I give you Rose and my children lord and If I am going to die now then I am going to enter heaven singing your praises.’ And began to worship Jesus quietly believing any moment now this is it, as suddenly as I felt that gun muzzle on my neck it lifted off of me and the police man came round the front of the car again and threw my licence into the car, and angrily told me to get the hell out of here, I didn’t argue I took off like a shot. A few days later another man was shot dead by this group of bogus policemen in this area. God spared my life again, I can still to this day feel that feeling of the gun pressed against my neck. God showed me mercy again.

Four

House were man was killed

On a wet and windy Friday morning I was working on a roof of a three story building, below me was a vat of burning tar used for felting the roof. As myself and a joiner I had working for me walked across the joists of the roof, one of the joists came loose and gave way under me, and I fell feet first over the roof of the building heading straight into the vat of burning tar, when the man with me grabbed me by the hair as I fell off the roof and pulled me back onto the roof, saving my life or saving me from a horrific burning. Imagine hot tar being poured over you, that’s what it would have been like only worse because I would have been in it cooking at about a hundred degrees, and there was no one around below that could have helped

me, there was only the man on the roof with me, so for this one incident alone I am so grateful to God for his mercy towards me.

An hour later I had an appointment with a building inspector to view another house repair job that I was working at, in a different part of the city. I got into my car still shaken from my near death experience when I reversed the car straight into a wall behind me; I forgot I was parked in reverse.

A short time later I arrived at the house where I was to meet the building inspector. I awaited his arrival and he arrived on time and we went inside the house, and out to the back yard so that he could inspect the foundations for the new kitchen and bedroom, and as we came back inside he asked could he check upstairs as there was other work to be done by me and my workforce. I agreed and as I walked up approximately three stairs I felt an invisible hand on my chest forcing me back down the stairs again, I saw nothing but felt that hand pushing me back stopping me from going up stairs. It was an angel I realised later on. I felt weird to say the least, but not frightened, so I made an excuse to the building inspector that I had fallen off the roof and was not feeling so good could we leave it till another day, and he agreed. {A few years later this man told me he was overcome with a terrible fear and was glad when I asked to leave}

That was the day I gave my life to Jesus Christ, because later that day at five o clock my wife Rose and I went on a marriage encounter weekend. On that weekend I struggled with the God thing I believed there was a God but he was a vicious angry God who only wanted to punish you and killed your family to test you, he was not a very nice person as far as I was concerned. I had no faith in him at all and kept my distance from him.

On the marriage encounter weekend I was rebellious with the God part and was feeling very angry and sad and all sorts of feelings surfaced in me. Then a priest called Fr Mc Goldrick began speaking about this God called Jesus and how much he loved us an forgave us our sins and wanted to pour out his love upon us, and how he never condemned us and understood us in every way. I had never heard God spoken about like this before and was confused, was this same God I grew up knowing from a distance, the one I knew was cruel and a hard task master demanding things of us that no human being could give to him. But this Jesus was being talked of as loving us unconditionally and wanting the best for us, I was intrigued by all this and slowly began opening my heart up to this Jesus and on the Sunday evening as the weekend was approaching I finally gave in and gave my life to Jesus. Rose knew I was going through an agonising time and I gave her a very hard time on the weekend, I am blessed by a wonderful wife no other woman would have put up with me and she helped me through the emotions that I struggled with on the weekend.

The weekend had come to a end and I was feeling good, when I spotted the couple who were leading the weekend looking at us and I knew instinctively there was something wrong, and as they approached us I could sense that someone had died, and I cursed the God I just asked into my heart.

The couple were a nice couple but when they reached us and said could they speak to us, I didn’t think of them as nice anymore; I got aggressive and asked were there someone dead? They replied yes, and I asked was it one of our children or family and they said, ‘no I don’t think you know them.’ I got very angry and said, ‘then what the hell are you telling us this for?’

They explained that there was a man shot dead in the house that I was working in, and that the police had raided our home twice looking for me because I had the key to this house, and that my father and the friend who saved my life on the roof a few days before were at a hotel across the street waiting to drive us home by a back route into our city to avoid the army checkpoints who were looking for me.

It turned out that on the morning that the building inspector and I entered the house I was working at, there were undercover British Army SAS soldiers hiding upstairs and in the attic, and if we had gone up those stairs we would have been shot dead, because later on that evening a man entered the house and went upstairs and was riddled by bullets and died, it turned out that one of my workers had given the spare key he had to the IRA and they hid guns and explosives in the house and the army had been watching them and so laid up an ambush and killed this man as he attempted to remove some of the guns.

If that hand had not stopped me from going up those stairs both the building inspector and I would have been killed for sure, and of that I have no doubt whatsoever. But God had mercy on me again though I didn’t deserve any mercy, but the Jesus I learned about on the weekend turned out to be the merciful God I was told he was.

There is a lot more in this story but not for this book, I don’t know if this man had an angel try and stop him from going up those stairs to his death but that angel stopped me and I took heed and left.

Six

I don’t know why

I don’t know why I have been prompted to write these stories of God’s mercy towards me since birth but I know God has his reasons. Many times Satan has tried to kill me but every time he did God showed me mercy and forgiveness.

For the last thirty five years I have been in a healing ministry and a book ministry, serving God with all my heart and trying to bring others to Jesus showing them how loving and forgiving he really is and never once has he condemned me over these last thirty five years since coming to him but has continued to shower out blessings on me and my family. Many times he has tried to kill me and tried to destroy me and my family but God’s mercy was greater and will continue to be greater and I know that Satan will never stop trying to destroy me or my children, and even till this time of writing my home has been targeted by thugs throwing mud at my windows and last week a young drunken thug attacked my car trying to smash the side window and panels in and failed, and last night someone poured bleach over my cat trying to hurt my pet. I know these people don’t know that the devil is using them to attack me and my family. And at the same time in Turkey my daughter was supposed to fly home and was prevented because there was a terrible car crash on the airport road and all traffic was stopped so she missed her flight but I know God was being merciful no matter what everything looks like he protects all that is mine. And this Jesus will do the same for you if you give him your life just like I gave my life to him and he will shower mercy down on you also because he has no favourites but loves us all equally.

Amen

To God be all glory