Shot in the Spine, Words of Forgiveness: A Deacon’s Story of Faith, Violence, & Purpose
Heroism, Hospice, and Healing: He was shot in the spine, & he forgave them immediately
For Deacon Michael Bellinder, the moment that changed his life forever came late one night in March 1996.
Bellinder had been working relentless days—running a struggling family printing business during the day and selling cable services door-to-door at night to support his wife and three children. The routine often stretched to 16 or 17 hours.
“I kept praying, ‘Lord, something’s got to give,’” he recalled.
What came next was not the answer he expected.
On March 21, the first day of spring, Bellinder was locking up the cable office around 11 p.m. after escorting lady coworkers to their cars—a safety practice he had started himself after the company stopped providing escorts.
When he opened the door to leave, the night exploded into chaos.
“The door just whooshed out of my hands,” Bellinder said. “Before we knew it, five ski-mask men were on top of us.”
His first thought was disbelief.
“This is a joke,” he remembered thinking.
Then a gun was pressed against his throat.
Facing Death
The prayer he remembered from childhood
The robbers forced Bellinder and a coworker to kneel on the floor with their noses touching the ground. Their hands were duct-taped behind their backs.
“If there’s anybody else in the building,” one attacker shouted, “you’re a dead man. We’re going to kill you.”
Bellinder said he could almost feel his heart pounding out of his chest.
In that moment, a memory from childhood surfaced. Catholic nuns had once taught him what to do if he believed death was near: pray the Act of Contrition.
“My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you…” he prayed silently.
What happened next surprised him.
“As I prayed that prayer, I went into the most incredible state of peace I’ve ever felt in my entire life,” Bellinder said. “I felt like I was having an appetizer of the banquet of heaven.”
The robbers were there to steal cable boxes from the warehouse—devices that could be resold illegally for hundreds of dollars.
When a hidden alarm sounded, the plan collapsed.
One of the men fired a gun. Point blank range. The heat flashed up his back.
“I Forgive You”
The bullet struck Bellinder in the lower spine.
“As I’m falling to the ground,” he said, “three words shot out of my mouth just as fast as the bullet that went into my spine.”
“I forgive you.”
Bellinder insists he didn’t consciously decide to say it.
“I have no way of thinking that fast,” he said. “It was an automatic response because of the depth of that peace that I felt.”
The bullet lodged between vertebrae in his lower back. Doctors later said it came dangerously close to causing permanent paralysis.
Even today, Bellinder lives with neuropathy in his left leg.
“My left foot feels like it’s asleep all the time,” he explained.
Sports he once loved, such as basketball, soccer, and tennis, are now impossible.
Yet he says he has never felt anger toward the men who shot him.
“That was 30 years ago,” he said. “And I’ve not had one day of anger against them.”
A Father’s Reaction
When Bellinder’s parents arrived at the hospital and saw his bruised and battered face, his father reacted with fury.
“My dad said, ‘I’m going to get those—’” Bellinder recalled.
But Bellinder stopped him.
“I said, ‘Dad, I’ve already forgiven them. I want you to forgive them too.’”
The response stunned him.
“I saw his countenance change,” Bellinder said. “That permission gave him the freedom also to forgive.”
Since then, Bellinder has devoted much of his speaking ministry to the topic of forgiveness.
He recalls one woman at a senior home who initially refused to attend his talk.
“I don’t need any talk on forgiveness,” she said. She was just a mean old wretched woman.
She listened anyway.
Two days later, the chaplain called Bellinder with news.
The woman had phoned her daughter—ending a 15-year estrangement.
Walking With the Dying
Today Bellinder serves as a hospice chaplain, a role he describes as the most meaningful work of his life.
“I believe death is the last and most intimate experience that we all have to go through,” he said.
His job is to walk families through that final moment.
“I tell them how privileged I am to walk with them,” he said.
Bellinder asks patients and families a series of questions meant to uncover deeper spiritual concerns: fears about death, unresolved conflicts, doubts about faith, or struggles with forgiveness.
One experience stands out vividly.
After praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet beside a dying man named John, Bellinder told the family that a faithful Christian’s greatest gift is the final breath—the moment when a soul meets Christ.
“When I said ‘last breath,’ John took his last breath,” Bellinder said.
The room fell silent with shock and awe. “And we felt the presence of Jesus in that room,” he recalled.
The Crisis of Meaning
Through years of hospice ministry, Bellinder says he has noticed a troubling pattern.
Many people reach the end of their lives without a clear sense of purpose.
“It’s sad,” he said. “God has given us meaning. He’s given us purpose. But it’s up to us to discover what that purpose is.”
For men especially, he believes fatherhood plays a central role.
“Because we don’t have strong fatherhoods,” he said, “we don’t have strong families.”
Bellinder encourages men searching for direction to review their lives carefully.
“What lights your fire?” he asks them.
Often, he says, that spark points directly toward God’s calling.
Looking back at his own life—from speech therapy as a child to years in the business world—Bellinder believes every experience prepared him for ministry.
“Everything that I’ve done has culminated to the point where I’m at now,” he said.
Heroes Who Inspire Him
Bellinder draws inspiration from historical and spiritual figures who lived with courage.
One is Desmond Doss, the Seventh-day Adventist medic portrayed in the film Hacksaw Ridge, who rescued 75 soldiers in World War II without carrying a weapon.
“He would say, ‘Lord, let me save just one more,’” Bellinder said.
Catholic saints also shape his vision of heroism.
Among them:
Saint Joseph, whom Bellinder calls the ultimate model of fatherhood
Padre Pio, known for spending up to 18 hours hearing confessions
Saint Maximilian Kolbe, who volunteered to die in a Nazi concentration camp to save another man
Mother Teresa, who served the poorest of the poor
Their examples push him toward a radical spiritual ambition.
“I pray every day,” Bellinder said, “Lord, I want to die for you. You died for me. I want to die for you.”
Seeking heroism
Bellinder says heroism rarely appears overnight. “It’s a process,” he said.
Even his own faith took decades to mature.
The gunshot wound, years of depression and anxiety from medical complications, and the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic each deepened his spiritual life.
Now he and his wife pray together nightly—an hour of rosaries, chaplets, and devotional prayers.
“Seek the will of God in your life every day,” he advises men.
“Do an examination of conscience every day. Where have I failed today? How can I make it right tomorrow?”
Heroism, he believes, grows through thousands of small decisions.
“You don’t just become a hero overnight,” Bellinder said.
“But if you do the will of the Heavenly Father, you will set the world on fire.”