Stories of Conversion: Gary Witherall
One October afternoon, when I was seventeen, I was tearing down the hill on my motorbike in front of our school. I was going as fast as possible, showing off for the crowd of kids getting out of school. I could have driven slower, but I didn’t. So I came around a bend, full throttle, and there was a car coming toward me—squeezing in between all the parked cars on both sides of the road. I had nowhere to go. I put my brakes on and the back wheel slid along the curb. I slammed into a parked car. The car and the bike were instantly totaled. I immediately broke my hand as it bent backward (it was still on the throttle) and flew through the air.
Just before impact, my whole life flashed before me, not only my past, but the future that would never be. I saw the girl I would never marry, the family I would never have.
I landed on my back. My leg, badly broken and twisted, throbbed in agonizing pain. I was taken to the hospital in intensive care, where I had a six-hour surgery. I don’t remember much of that time. Three days later, I came back to where I could have a conversation.
The doctors told me that I should have been dead. There were three points in the crash that should have killed me. I received a lot of blood and plasma, and I had all these tubes in me. I later learned that I needed six pints of blood and seven pints of plasma to replenish what I had lost. My leg was in traction—suspended in air by bits of metal.
My dad had left a Bible next to my bed, so I opened it up. After all, I had nothing else to do. I randomly opened it to the Magnificat—the passage in Luke where Mary finds out that she will be the mother of God. She praises God for using her as His servant.
I cried, overwhelmed with gratitude to God that he had spared me and that he could use me. I thought, “Who am I that you would look upon me? Who am I that you would spare my life?”
There on that hospital cot, I told the Lord, “As you have given life back to me, I now dedicate my life to you.”
With that prayer, everything changed.
Gary Witherall is one of our most beloved partners and a full-time evangelist and missionary for the non-profit organization Operation Mobilization.
Additionally, Gary is the author of the book Total Abandon, a biography that unfolds his life, his journey to Christ, and his wife’s death at the hands of terrorists in Lebanon.
Gary has since remarried, and he lives with his wife and children in Germany. He speaks and ministers in countries all over the world, guiding countless people to find Christ.