Thursday 26 April 2012

Combining Traditional Testimony with Memoir

A traditional Christian testimony is a personal story of how someone found Christ and surrendered to faith.
Memoir is a literary account of a person's life told through anecdotes and memory.

Combining these two mediums is a delicate process. The core of One Way to Grace has to remain testimonial. David's mission is to share with the world, believers and nonbelievers alike, how Jesus Christ saved his life. Memoir is a beautiful vehicle for a traditional testimony when the two are in balance.
The use of Scripture has been a great tool. By incorporating the Bible into the memoir format, we can remind the readers (and ourselves) the true intention of the work. The Scripture excerpts also aid the memoir aspect, by setting a tone for each chapter.
For example, in Chapter Five of One Way to Grace, David and his new wife are dealing with the turmoil of adjusting to married life and parenthood at an extraordinarily young age. The Scripture we associated with this time in David's life is:

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
-Ephesians 5:22-25 KJV

 What I felt from this Passage reinforced the sense of fitting into the roles of marriage, underlying love, and intimate partnership that were at the core of David's marriage. It is also a way of showing how every life connects with the lessons and messages found in the Bible. At this point in his journey, David had not been Saved and yet, Ephesians 5:22-25 directly correlates to what was happening to him, his wife, and his life.

God and Christ were all around David every moment, even if he was blind to the signs and influence. If nothing else, this message will make us all feel less alone.


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