A Man Stopped Running

A Man Stopped Running

- 12 years on,

a true story

framed poetically.

Al carried guilt

like a sack of coal.

Not a regret.Not a mistake.

A sack.

The sort of weight that

bends a person over

even when there's

nothing on their back.

He thought he had a demon.

And maybe the evil one had

thrown a few spanners in the works,

whispered lies into old wounds,

turned shame into something that felt alive.

But I never thought it was a demon.

I thought it was a man

who had crossed a line somewhere,

then crossed another,

and another,

until he no longer recognised himself.

When he first came to Lighthouse

he was in his fifties.

Oversized jeans.

A scruffy beard.

Glasses held together with gaffer tape.

Pale as a Leeds winter.

A faint smell of sweat.

And sorrow.

He rarely looked you in the eye.

His head stayed lowered,

as though he was waiting for a telling off.

We'd met before.

Months earlier at Alpha.

Someone prayed for him.

He shrieked.

Then wept.

Then fled.

Out of the room

and into the night.

I remember watching him go.

Not thinking,

‘There goes a man with a demon."

Thinking,

"There goes a man in pain."

The truth is,

people don't usually destroy themselves

because they're enjoying life.

There is nearly always a story underneath.

A wound beneath the wound.

A sadness beneath the addiction.

A grief beneath the anger.

Al knew the sort of nights

that leave their mark.

Nights when sleep doesn't come.

Nights staring at the ceiling.

Nights replaying old memories

like a punishment.

Nights where shame sits beside you

and refuses to leave.

Nights where tomorrow feels less like hope

and more like another stretch of road

you somehow have to walk.

Then one day

he came asking for prayer.

An exorcism.

That was what he wanted.

The retired priest was there.

A quiet woman.

Wise.

The sort of person

who had spent decades

walking alongside broken hearts.

The sort of pastor

who had long ago stopped being

impressed by noise

and learned to pay attention to grace.

We sat together.

Talked.

Prayed.

She opened the Psalms.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation."

Nothing dramatic.

Just scripture.

Just prayer.

Just presence.

Then Al stood up.

"I've had enough."

I thought he was leaving.

Expected him to make for the fire exit

like a wild horse on steroids.

I'd seen it before.

The moment things get too close.

The moment someone feels exposed.

The moment every instinct says:

Run.

Instead,

he dropped to his knees,

and began to weep.

Not tidy tears.

Not a single confession.

Years came out.

Stories.

Regrets.

Names.

Things done.

Things left undone.

One after another.

Sometimes crying.

Sometimes sobbing,

Sometimes struggling to get the words out.

The retired priest stood beside him.

I stood beside him.

And there,

next to the fire exit,

among cigarette ends

and damp concrete,

a man stopped running.

We spoke the name of Jesus.

Just Jesus.

No shouting.

No performance.

No theatre.

Just Jesus.

I asked if he wanted

to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

He nodded.

So we anointed him with oil.

Hands on his head.

Simple as that.

And then something happened.

He lifted his face.

Held our gaze.

The anger was gone.

The fear seemed to loosen its grip.

His face brightened.

Colour returned.

I know that sounds strange.

Years earlier,

as a young priest,

I had visited a funeral director.

I remember watching them

prepare a body.

I remember being surprised

how colour returned to a face.

Watching Al,

that memory flashed into my mind.

Not because of death.

Because it looked like life was returning.

As though someone had opened a window.

The retired priest smiled.

Later she simply said,

"It's one of the joys of ministry

to see the Holy Spirit at work."

Nothing more.

No attempt to explain it.

No need to.

A few days later

Al told me something.

"When I used to pray,

I always saw Jesus

with his head turned away."

That stayed with me.

Jesus looking away.

Jesus refusing eye contact.

Jesus disappointed.

Jesus done with him.

The Jesus shame invents.

Then he smiled.

"But now he looks at me."

That's all he said.

But it was enough.

After that

he came to everything.

Meals.

Prayer.

Worship.

Bible study.

The kind of things

that slowly stitch a life back together.

A couple of weeks later

he turned up with a few hundred quid.

Money he would once have spent to numb the ache.

"Let's take everyone out."

So we did.

A farm.

The Lighthouse family.

Yorkshire Dales ice cream.

The expensive stuff.

With flakes.

People laughing.

Banter, sunshine & blessing.

I remember thinking,

This is what grace looks like.

Not spectacular.

Not famous.

Not platform ministry.

Just a man

who had spent years

trying to numb his pain

buying joy for other people.

A year later

Al died.

Too young.

Too soon.

There is no point pretending otherwise.

Death is cruel.

Even when resurrection is true.

At the funeral

I met his family.

And they spoke about Lighthouse.

About the friends he had found.

The place he belonged.

The place where he came alive again.

And I found myself thinking

about that first day.

The oversized jeans.

The gaffer-taped glasses.

The lowered head.

The smell of sweat and sorrow.

The man carrying a sack of coal.

The man who thought

Jesus had turned his face away.

I don't think he sees that now.

I think he sees Jesus face to face.

And I suspect

the first thing he noticed

was that he had been looking at him all along.

-----

Rev’d Jon Swales, May 2026