When a knee injury ended his rugby career, BILLY ROBERTSON punched through a window in frustration and nearly severed an artery. Things looked bleak. How did his life then change for the better? He told SARAH CHEMALY
‘There’s a bigger, better plan for each one of us,’ says Billy, who discovered this the hard way | Photo: Leentjie du Preez
The middle child of a lawyer and a lecturer, Billy (52) grew up in various parts of South Africa’s Western Cape, boarding at Rondebosch Boys’ High School in Cape Town. Today he lives in the Hermanus area, where he has worked for 23 years as a field guide
I HAD A WONDERFUL CHILDHOOD filled with love and support. I was probably around 11 when some Christian students visited my primary school, and one prophesied very specifically that I was going to take people from around the world for guided talks about the flora and fauna of the Western Cape. I listened politely but thought to myself, there’s no way I’m going to be walking and talking to people from overseas because I’m going to be a Springbok rugby player!
And until I reached my twenties, rugby was my only focus. My father had big dreams for a career for me that involved studying at university, but I felt them as pressure and my teenage years were marked by rebellion, particularly after an incident at school where I was punished for being honest about drinking a beer while others lied about it.
Feeling that honesty brought trouble while deceit brought rewards, I drifted onto a darker path, engaging in reckless behaviour, skipping homework and even forging school marks. Again, when I was about 15, a team of people came to my school and shared the gospel with us. I actually made a public commitment to try to live it out but I got quite hectically teased in my dorm afterwards. My faith didn’t grow much, instead I just felt guilty, which kept me as constricted as a bonsai tree.
‘My teenage years were marked by rebellion,’ says Billy, who now finds joy in the simpler things of life | Photo: Leentjie du Preez
Frustrated and empty, I tried to find meaning in achievement and my performance on the rugby field. This is no permanent path to happiness but it was a great way to get rid of my frustrations. I still dreamt of becoming a professional player and my father still dismissed this as unrealistic as, at that stage, there were no careers in professional rugby in South Africa. But I pursued my dream, playing for Western Province Craven Week, Boland under-23s and Dundee HSFP in Scotland.
Discussions were underway for me to join a team in Brisbane when injury suddenly hijacked my career. In the last minute of a game, someone fell on top of me and my knee ligament pulled off some bone. I came back to South Africa and started playing again but, during a club match, my cross ligaments went during a tackle. I could hardly stand on my leg. So that was the end of that. It felt as if someone had died.
deeply frustrated
I moved to Hermanus and found work as a barman. A guy who loved walking in nature used to come to the bar every day for a single beer and talk about his walks on the cliff path, which I found fascinating. Then one day the Springboks came to practise at my old rugby stomping ground. I knew some of them and this felt very hard for me. Later that day, I smoked some marijuana with a friend and then, deeply frustrated, punched through a window. As my hand went through the pane I thought, ‘Oh Jesus, help me!’ At that moment I felt the presence of a kind of heavenly being with me.
However, a massive shard of glass had cut into my arm. Two operations later, I woke up from the anaesthetic to hear the doctor, who was quite angry with me for damaging myself, tell me, ‘I don’t believe in God, but I just want to tell you this is a miracle. You shouldn’t be alive!’ The glass had cut all the muscles around my artery but not the vein itself.
As Billy punched through a window pane in frustration, a massive shard of glass went into his arm. He says: ‘I thought, “Oh Jesus help me!”‘ | Photo: Leentije du Preez
The words of that doctor changed my life and I decided to pray and discover why God had intervened in my life, and not given me over to death. Before I left the hospital, a lady from Gideons Bible Society gave me a little booklet and a Gideons bible to read, and later prayed with me. She laid hands on me and said, ‘Lord, just fill this guy with your Holy Spirit.’
When I got home, I was tired but couldn’t find peace for sleep. I thought of the words about forgiveness in the prayer Our Father, and realised for the first time that for God to forgive me for what I’d done, I needed first to forgive the people I was holding things against. This included someone I’d invested R50 000 with in a business that had gone south. I needed peace and decided to forgive everybody I was holding anything against, including myself. I wanted to let go of any unforgiveness I was harbouring. I said, ‘Lord, I want your forgiveness so I forgive everybody.’ Then I fell into a deep sleep.
At three that morning I woke up feeling a presence in my room, and also that a massive mountain of guilt and shock had lifted off me. It was so liberating to realise that forgiveness frees you of the poison of offence. I think it’s one of the most underrated things you can do.
BILLY: IT’S NOT ABOUT FOLLOWING THE RULES
I felt I had so much to learn and, knowing that my cousin Anneke was a committed Christian, I went to stay for three months with her and her family on their farm in Mpumalanga. There, I started to realise that placing my worth and happiness in performance was fleeting and unsustainable: the crowd that cheers you today may boo you tomorrow. I spent a lot of time in prayer, eventually accepting Jesus and giving over control of my life to him as I began to understand that his love is not dependent on my performance. It was a revelation that brought me a profound peace and freedom.
I now live in Hermanus, have qualified myself as a professional field guide for Southern Africa and specialise in fynbos, birds of the Overberg and the inter-tidal zone. Only some time into this did I remember the prophecy about me guiding people in nature which was spoken over me in primary school! I’ve been guiding people for 23 years now, and it still doesn’t feel like work for me. It’s such a privilege to spend your days walking in nature. Encountering the beauty of creation allows me to connect with the Father in a profound way. When a sunbird sings, I feel God’s love.
Billy has now been nature-guiding visitors from all over the world in the Western Cape for the past 23 years. Only some time into this did he remember that this career had been prophesied for him when he was young | Photo: Leentjie du Preez
My life has turned from one of striving to one of gratitude. I encourage those who struggle with faith or have been hurt by the church to focus on the love of the Father rather than human institutions, to drink from the living water that is Jesus. God loved us first, before we did anything to qualify ourselves, and for me that’s really what His goodness is all about. His love is accessible to us all. Church, as I now understand it, is not a building or a set of rules but about having a personal relationship with God, living in the freedom of His love and recognising the unique gifts in others.
Before, I was never humble. But encountering the love of Jesus and realising the price he paid for me, and for us all, has humbled me. I’m grateful I could go from darkness to light, to a greater situation than my own efforts to become something. And that I woke up to a love that’s always been for us.
I used to enjoy having a sad story to explain where I was, until I realised that the greater story is to walk in step with the Heavenly Father. So often we have dreams for ourselves, but we don’t realise that if we reach out to Him we will find that He’s got a bigger, better plan for each one of us ♦
