Becoming Someone's Testimony

I used to hear songs and think to myself that maybe some divine memorandum was sent out to the great bards and musicians of our time and that they had written these anthems for me. Each word permeated through me, each note skied through my soul slopes stinging and soothing in due turn. But whatever protagonist the song was praising, whether he was a fallen hero or at the top of his game, that hero was always me. I just knew it.

I was the hero of every song I heard.

It is only recently that I have heard songs and known I was the villain. For the first time the hero was singing and telling of my misdeeds. Telling of my menace.

And that is a devil of a realization to come to.

So just what is it I've become? God is "the master of my fate [and] the captain of my soul." So what? What am I?

I believe I am a testimony.

It happens to everyone. It's never good. But, when we tell our testimony, many times there is someone else involved in the story. Many times there is a perpotrator. A villain. We never know their names. We just are told of their crimes. They just lay beaten and bruised in the alleyways of the story.

But the thing is, they are people and they are souls and they too have a story.

To rejoice in someone's testimony is correct. It is their triumph.

But anothers defeat. So we have a paradox

But maybe, maybe becoming someone's testimony is a testimony in itself

And even though we are singing along to our own judgment and humming our own dirge...

Maybe there is hope for us yet.

We are distorted harbingers of the grace of God. We did it the wrong way, but He isn't finished with us, and He will get to glory. It's not about what we want to be, it's about an inescapable past. And it's about how maybe, just maybe we can find an ending to the story to make the book worth finishing. The first stack of paper in my left hand is useless. Tear them out and hand them out as religious tracts. Learn from me. Learn from me.

We always think about our testimony.

But a greater triumph may come from the transformation from murderer to martyr.

At least that's what I'm hoping.

Stupid songs.