The death of Paul Lee’s mother changed everything.
That was it. That was the thing that drove Lee over an emotional and spiritual cliff. The big, tough, cynical Chattanooga police officer couldn’t take any more. He thought he would hold it all together, treating it like another death — another case to manage.
“Keep your emotions out of it,” he told himself. Because that’s what he’d learned at the police academy. But that wasn’t working, not now. Being an only child, making all the arrangements, pressure from work, strain on relationships — it was all too much. It was the last straw.
“I was in the shower getting ready for the funeral, watching my life play back like a bad B movie,” he said. “And I began to cry uncontrollably. I had been under conviction for years — not minutes or days — years.”
He thought about his mother and how his parents had taken him to church as a boy. He knew the way of the Lord, but he could never bring himself to surrender, offering excuses for all the ways the Lord couldn’t use him. But that all unraveled in the shower.
“I was done,” he said. “I cried out to God three things: ‘I surrender, I give up, I throw in the towel.’ That’s exactly what I said in that shower.
“I knew what surrender was because people surrendered to me and were handcuffed. At that point you’re no longer free. You give up. I knew what it meant to throw in the towel. It’s a boxing term. I had taken punch after punch from God, and I couldn’t take another punch. I asked Him to forgive me, and He did right then, right there, that second. When I stepped out of that shower, I was a new man, and I’ve never looked back.”
Lee’s conversion changed everything about his life, and especially his job.
Uniting Christian officers
Lee spent nearly 28 years with the Chattanooga Police Department and eventually retired as a captain. Today he serves as executive director of the Fellowship of Christian Peace Officers-USA, a national ministry whose mission is to unite officers committed to being Christ’s ambassadors within the law enforcement community.
Or, as Lee describes it, missionaries to law enforcement officers and to the communities they serve.
“Police officers are told to check your emotions,” he said. “But you can’t do that and see human beings through the eyes of Jesus — to have compassion on the people you must deal with. You can still do the job and keep your emotions because you’re on the mission field for Christ.”
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More information about joining FCPO or starting a chapter is available at FCPO.org or by calling 423-553-8806.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Chris Turner and originally published by Tennessee’s Baptist and Reflector.
