The Word of our Testimony

They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. (Revelation 12:11, NIV)

We're on a movie kick around here. For like three years, I didn't watch any. My head was so far in a book it was all I could do to keep the house going. Now I seem to be back with the world again (as far back as I can get) and catching up a bit. In the past week, we say Mean Girls (wowza, do girls talk like that in high school? Guess so. I did. Scary.), 50 First Dates (Okay perhaps Adam Sandler will not die from stupidity. Rob Shneider on the other hand...is a fool in need of serious counseling. The ending? Wonderful.). And then, last night, I finally caught Castaway.

I know what you're thinking, "Huh? Uh, Mary that is so old and oddball." True enough, but I try to catch most things with Tom Hanks or Robin Williams. They take on diverse projects and make me think about story in weird ways.

This time was no exception. After surviving what my husband swears were hours of Hanks on the beach with his bloody volleyball named Wilson (I laughed. He rolled his eyes. Yet Adam Sandler cracks him up. Figures) I got to the end of the movie, the brink of the whole thing...and here comes a commercial.

My daughter got comfortable, like we do for these types of endings. Not quite the cry posture, but at least the grab your throat and sigh pose.

The screen flashed. We pulled closer and...

The credits rolled. My husband strolled by with a buffalo wing, laughing his way back to the football game I'd missed to see this.

Nobody turned off the TV. We just stared. At each other. At the ceiling. I thought,"Please God, don't ever let me do this to somebody. Ever!" LOL

When I finally pulled myself together, my daughter exploded. "What was in the box? What do the wings mean? How'd she get that cute shirt living out in the boonies? What's the dog's name?"

"Yeah! And what was up with the husband sleeping through the taxi visit? And those maps on the table?"

I nodded, but that wasn't it. I realized that I live certain actors and certain producers because whether they know it or not they give me a Jesus moment, a slice of raw truth, pure hope. Not sappy necessarily, but something that says to me, "Yes, He was in it all along." This time, I only got to sniff it, sight it for off like a cloud the size of man's hand.

But I can't be real mad at that writer. I do it too, stop short of the ending. My ending. We all do. I met so many writers this past weekend who want to write like anybody but themselves. Writers especially are weird this way. We all feel compelled to tell others what they should write, what they should feel, even when we don't what to do with our own stuff. People did that to me for years, still do it.

Why? Because the church and some of the industry is doing it to them. People want the story, but not the whole soul-shaking, raw, bleeding thing. Do we want to stay safe in our churches in some make believe Christian world or overcome the enemy? I wonder. The tools that take him down are the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, the fingerprint of our pain, the tapestry of our hope.

So wherever you are today, being God's living book, his moving story, don't tape shut the good parts or flip past the bad ones. Tell people what's in the box, who is in it--Jesus. He's the wings, the mystery, the whole thing. And if you're a writer, don't try and be anybody else. God already has one of them. There is only one strange and wonderful you. :)

Find your rhythm and play it to THE END.

Peace : Mary