Testimony

Somewhere in the vast middle I began again
 I started thinking about warm summer nights
 About train stories and old paintings
 About that wooden bench that became the coffin for my old self
 Lying there
 Gazing up into eternity
 Assured of my place among the stars
 Wondering which one has my name on it
 What will my mailing address be in heaven?
 And how long will my life shine light on this world after I've finally burned out
 Turned out every word they said in my confirmation class was true
 Not that I didn't think it was
 I just didn't think it mattered
 And the more I understand the spectrum of conservative evangelicals
 The more I realize how ironic is that I got saved while sitting on a pool table
 Hustled by grace
 It took me for all I was worth which wasn't much at the time but you made me more
 Like a child in his first experience with love
 I wrote you a letter
 Asking if you liked me too
 Circle yes or no
 And with blood, you surrounded the affirmative
 I roamed the halls that night to the sound of melodic teenage hormones or was that praise
 The endless ways we express our adoration in a new found relationship
 But how many will stick?
 How many will still shout 'hallelujah' when these camp fires flicker
 Down to nothing but dust and ash
 I ask, is something wrong with me because I'm not crying
 Did my prayer somehow not count without a river of tears to carry
 My white flag of surrender to the doorstep of your throne
 Or are we already like really good friends
 You see my heart before you hear my words
 You get it
 And you got me
 At 14 years old I gave myself to a man who took nothing from me
 And gave me forever
 And I know that sounds wrong
 But it's the rightest thing this left out, tall, theater boy ever experienced
 Cause I'd seen the verses
 And read the red letters
 And said the dead words that never meant anything to me until you gave everything for me
 I never realized that belonging was the longest longing my soul had ever longed for
 Until I belonged more on your shore that any foreign land in which I searched for home
 And at the end of the night somewhere in that vast middle I heard my name
 And a new life began