The Day I Was Arrested and Nearly Imprisoned

It all happened live when I was in Junior High School form 2 (I think). It’s a day I will never forget. In fact, my worst day as a child.

Let me tell you what happened and what I learnt from it.

The day was 31st December. Instead of going to church with my mother for the Watch Night Service at the Methodist Church at Ajumako in the Central Region of Ghana, I was with friends for the wrong reasons. We were playing with firecrackers (a loud, explosive firework) contrary to the order that people should desist from it. It had been announced that due to the dangerous and noisy nature of firecrackers, no one should engage in it. As stubborn children, we defied the orders and looked for opportunities to do the illegal act.

I remember that someone had lit a firecracker and I was about to pick it up and throw it into the air to explode multiple times when suddenly a drunk police officer grabbed me by my dress and said I was arrested. I begged him but he didn’t let me go. He was taking me to the police station.

Very soon there were teeming people following us and shouting. I felt like the whole village was following me. I was shivering and crying and begging him to let me go. He insisted I must be put behind bars.

The fear, the trauma, and the loud shouts I experienced makes me remember everything as if it happened yesterday.

It took the intervention of a fellow drunkard and smoker of the policeman to plead for me to be released before we got to the police station premises. I felt embarrassed and thought my friends would make fun of me when school reopened. Yes, school resumed, I went but no one really cared about the incident. My fears never existed. Till today, I don’t remember anyone ever making mention of it unless I personally do so.

https://livingourbible.wordpress.com/2022/06/08/my-terrible-experience-in-public-speaking-and-how-i-vowed-not-to-speak-again-but-i-am-now-a-preacher/

Life has lessons to teach us. What did I learn from this?

#1. Defying Your Parents For Bad Reasons Will Come To Bite You.

This is a life lesson you must never forget: when you defy orders for bad reasons, it will turn back to haunt you. If I had gone to church with my mom, there would have been nothing like a police arrest and near imprisonment.

#2. Never Forsake The Gathering Of The Saints.

I never had a good Christian foundation when I was growing up. I didn’t go to Sunday School, camp meetings, and the rest until I finished university and became truly saved by grace. So my experience as a kid was to while away the time when other children were busily involved in catechism and Sunday School.

If I had attended church, I would not have been arrested. The day King David of ancient Israel decided to stay behind when his men were fighting was the day he lustfully saw, illegally took, and unfaithfully impregnated someone’s wife and incurred the wrath of God with damaging effects for the whole nation (2 Samuel 11-12). We must watch it.

#3. No One Really Cares If You Are Embarrassed Unless You Make It A Big Deal.

At least this incident and my worst public speaking experience (blog I shared days ago) taught me that many people care less about what you care much about. People have more troubles to handle than adding your own to it. Whatever you go through, get over it and live your life. It was a worst experience but it didn’t have to define my life.

Each one of us has an experience or two that stays with us forever. For me, it was this incident of police arrest for a bad reason. Indeed, I was never processed to stay behind bars (I don’t have any police records of arrest) but it taught me a lesson to order my life well.

May the Lord order our steps in His ways.

What experience in your life has stuck with you till now? Share with us.