The Eyewitness

The following incident is true. It happened to a woman I once met. As you read it, imagine yourself in her place, trying to feel what she may have felt. 

You are alone in your faded, yellow station wagon on a dark street. It is winter. You are waiting at a red light. Another car pulls up behind you, but you probably don't notice. It's driven by a young man, a 17-year-old high school senior on his way to a friend's house where a school choral group is practicing for the upcoming Christmas program. In a few moments your lives will become intertwined.

Traffic is light. No cars are coming from the opposite direction. To your left is a Shell station. Across the street on your left is a vacant lot. The light turns green. You accelerate. Halfway through the intersection there's an earth-shattering crash causing you to lose control of the car. You veer to the left, drive over the sidewalk and bounce through the vacant lot, slowly coming to a stop. You're very shaken up, crying and scared, but uninjured. A fellow from the Shell station runs across the street to see if you're alright. Through your tears you ask him what happened, and he tells you that another car crashed into yours, causing you to veer off into the vacant lot. You never saw it coming.

The car that hit you sits in the middle of the intersection. The driver, a man, remains at the wheel. Sitting in the passenger seat is a woman, his wife. They just sit there and do not appear to be injured.

A few motorists stop to see if they can be of assistance. One of them is the high school student who was waiting behind you at the light. He tells you he saw what happened, gives you his name and phone number, and leaves. Only later do you learn that he was the only eyewitness.

A day or two later you meet with an insurance adjuster. During the conversation you give him the name of the eyewitness. Within a few days, the insurance investigator goes to the high school. There, with permission of the school authorities, he interviews the young man who confirms that the traffic light was definitely green when you entered the intersection.

It appears to be an open-and-shut case. Your statement and that of the eyewitness affirm that the other driver was at fault. But many months later you are stunned to learn that the other driver is suing you. He claims that it was he, not you, who had the green light. You feel like the wind has been knocked out of you. You wonder, "How can this be? It was so obvious that he was the one at fault!"

Your world has now turned upside down. Your nights are worry-filled and sleepless. You hire an attorney. A court date is set. The attorney contacts the parents of the high school student, only to learn that he's now in college out of state. The parents contact their son, and arrangements are made to fly him home to testify at the trial.

When the day arrives, you scan the almost empty courtroom. Very few spectators are there.  Then you see them -- the driver of the other car and his wife. They stare at you in anger. You look away. Then you see a young man -- the student -- and you realize how much you depend on his testimony today.

He is called to the stand and sworn in. His voice is very quiet. So quiet, in fact, that the judge twice interrupts, asking him to speak louder so the jury can hear him. The other driver and his wife are looking daggers at the young man. He tries not to return their gaze.

You are surprised by how few questions he is asked -- seems like only two or three --then he's excused. Though brief, his testimony was exactly what you'd hoped for.

The witness leaves the courtroom with an older man, probably his father. He doesn't have time to wait around for the verdict because he has a plane to catch. After a gut-wrenching wait, the verdict is in. The jury believes you and your witness. You have won! The ordeal that has tormented you for the better part of a year is over.

Later, after things have settled down, you write a letter to the young man. You tell him the good news. It's not just a hurried note saying "thanks a lot." Yours are words of heartfelt gratitude, written with great emotion because, quite literally, his actions freed you from fear and despair.

Now, reader, consider how you'd feel to be in that woman's shoes. How important to you was that young man's testimony? Oh, sure, you could have taken the stand and testified on your own behalf. But then, so would the other driver, followed by his wife. And we know whose side she would take. Without your eyewitness it would have come down to "she said vs. he said."

Can you feel, even slightly, how important it would be to have someone on your side -- someone who could testify on your behalf? What a comfort to know that someone would be there to back you up -- to speak out for you.

That incident came to my mind early this morning while I was pondering two verses of scripture. They refer to a future scene when we will stand before God to be judged. There He will measure us against the standards we've been taught by His Son and our prophet leaders. The only way to measure up and to qualify for eternal life is to be found without sin. But here's the problem: Nobody is without sin. Nobody on this earth can ever make himself clean enough on his or her own. .

So does nobody enter God's presence? Are we all to be cast out? Actually, if it were not for Christ, that would be the case. If left to our own feeble efforts to cleanse ourselves and rid ourselves of the ungodly choices we've made in this life -- then yes, we would all be cast out, because nobody can make himself clean again. There is only one way to accomplish this -- with the Savior's help.

To those who hope to be clean again, the Savior tells us how:   "Sanctify yourselves . . . purify your hearts, and cleanse your hands and your feet before me, that I may make you clean." You will note that he does not say, "Make yourselves clean," because that is impossible. He is the One -- the only One -- who can ultimately cleanse us, not we ourselves. He is the "cleaning Solution" that washes away darkness, uncleanness, addiction, ungodliness, wickedness, and disobedience. The cleansing process can only happen when we sincerely repent and allow His Atonement to take our sins away.

And if we take advantage of His selfless offer to cleanse us, the next verse makes the most important point of all. In it He tells us what He will do in the courtroom scene when we stand before the Father. Instead of being totally alone, He will be there with us -- as our Eyewitness-- and here is what He promises to do: "That I may testify unto your Father, and your God and my God, that you are clean . . ." (See Doctrine and Covenants 88:74-75.) And because Christ can only speak the truth, the Father will believe Him, and we will be allowed entrance to God's kingdom. Our sins will have been forgotten -- remitted -- and the penalty for having committed them will have been paid for by Jesus Christ.

The message of Christ's Atonement is that even when we stumble spiritually, no matter how far we fall, as long as we get back up and sincerely and contritely call upon His name, with a resolve to never repeat the sin, He will make us clean again -- not partially clean -- not almost clean -- not close enough clean -- but totally without sin. And in that final judgment scene He will be there at our side as our eyewitness, bearing testimony to the Father that we are spotless, because He has made us so.

As President Boyd K. Packer promised only 48 hours ago in a CES devotional at BYU -- and he said it twice for emphasis -- "You and He will remember your sins no more." I assure you this is a true doctrine. I could not live with any measure of hope for my future if I did not know this for myself.

PS: I was the eyewitness to the accident..