This isn’t a normal blog post, but I wrote a few scripts that were performed at my church’s Great Lakes Youth Conference last week, and I thought I’d share them in case you weren’t able to make all the sessions. This year’s theme was “transformations,” so these are monologues for Bible characters who experienced radical transformations. Enjoy!

Rahab

Joshua 2. Performed by Meg Kelly.

You should have seen who I was before.

I wasn’t a person. I was a product.

I wasn’t a woman. I was a harlot.

I wasn’t Rahab. I was the Woman in the Wall.

For years, I allowed myself to be nothing more than an object – a thing men would buy in the night, use, then throw away. I never loved. I never laughed. I never felt. I was really only good at two things: making money and keeping secrets.

That all changed the day the spies arrived. We knew they’d come eventually. Our parents whispered stories about the frogs and the boils and the rivers of blood. We heard about the sea that became dry land. We saw them destroy kings in their way. And now the Israelites and their God were coming for us.

They were coming, specifically, to my door.

Maybe the spies knew that nobody pays attention to men walking into a harlot’s house or they thought a house of sin would be the best place to learn the secrets of a city like Jericho. I like to think that they had no idea who I was, and God simply led them to my door.

Whatever the case, I found myself that night sitting across the table from two Israelite spies. The men were nothing like what I had expected. I thought maybe, I don’t know, they’d turn my water into blood or give me leprosy or something. But these men were kind. They looked me in the eye and smiled at me and asked my name. For the first time in years, someone was interested in learning my real name.

While we talked, I found myself wondering what it would be like to go with them and leave the wall behind for good. To be Rahab again.

Late that night, I would get my chance.

Just before dawn, I was awoken by a knock on the door. It wasn’t the usual quiet knock of men hiding in the night, looking for company from the Woman in the Wall. It was a loud, shake-the-walls pounding of soldiers who wanted something they knew was behind the door.

The spies sprang from the floor, and I immediately took them to the roof and hid them under stalks of flax. Then I walked back downstairs to lie to the soldiers.

It was time to keep one last secret.

After I sent the soldiers away, I returned to the spies and told them the only two things I knew for sure: that their God was the one true God and he was going to destroy our city. I only asked that they spare my family’s life when the city fell. They agreed, and two weeks later when the walls crumbled, they kept their word.

The Woman in the Wall went down with the city that day, and the children of Israel gave me a second life I never deserved. I got a new home. I began to worship their God. I even married one of their men.

It’s been years since Jericho fell, and yet, when I catch my reflection while drawing the morning’s water, I still sometimes turn away. I remember all those years in the wall. I know who I was.

But then I walk home to my husband, and he holds me. He says my name. He smiles at me. And when he looks at me, he doesn’t see the Woman in the Wall. He knows what I did, and yet he loves me anyways.

I walk inside and hold my baby Boaz. Someday, he’ll learn more about who his mother was. And when he does, I’ll tell him that I’m not the woman I used to be for one reason, and one reason only.

The God of Israel – my God – is a God of transformations.

Maniac of Gadara

Luke 8. Performed by Wesam Elrabadi.

Most people don’t remember that I used to have friends, family and a job. They’re surprised to learn I had a wedding planned.

That life is the only one I can remember. I remember that, even though I should have been happy, I began searching for something else. I started learning about the other side. I met with those who spoke to the dead. One night, I finally decided to invite the first demon in.

I don’t remember much after that.

I don’t remember the tombs.

My family tells me that after the devils came inside, I started living outside. First it was the roof, then it was the street, then it was the fields. I finally made my home among the graves so I could be closer to the dead.

I don’t remember the chains.

As more devils came in, they say that I became louder – more violent. At first, I only hurt myself, but then I started going after others. They tried to bind me, but I became too strong for chains.

I don’t remember the scars.

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at these scars. This one is so deep – how did I not die? And look at this one. Was I wrestling with an animal? A person? Did I murder someone?

What I do remember, really the only thing I remember from the whole time the demons lived inside, is Jesus.

The morning Jesus came to Gadara, I remember waking up and feeling that He was nearby. I couldn’t explain it, but I had to see Him. When I found Jesus, I ran to Him and fell on my face. I opened my mouth to cry out, but the demons spoke instead.

“What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God?” they said.

Jesus answered with authority. No man had ever spoken to the demons like that before, and they had never feared like they did at that moment. They pleaded with Jesus to leave them alone.

Finally Jesus allowed the demons to leave my body for a herd of nearby pigs. The devils left, the pigs ran off a cliff, and just like that, my mind cleared. My fists unclenched. I noticed other people staring at me.

Somebody got me a robe while I sat with Jesus and shivered.

When Jesus left my city, I begged Him to let me come too. Instead of inviting me to join him, he smiled and said, “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee.”

That’s what I’ve been doing ever since. At least once a week, someone notices my scars or asks about my years among the tombs, and I get to retell my story about the day I met the Son of God.

Jesus transformed my life that day. He freed me from my chains and gave me a new start.

If you’ll let him, I know He’ll do the same for you.

Saul of Tarsus

Acts 9. Performed by Ryan Zapsic.

From a child, the law was my life. I committed entire books to memory. I could pray for hours. No possession was too small for a tithe. I knew the law, I kept the law, I was the law.

That’s why I held the coats the day Stephen died. Here was a man who blasphemed Moses at every opportunity – in the streets, in the synagogue, before the council. A man who felt comfortable rewriting history in front of the Sanhedrin was a man who needed to die in front of the world.

What kept me awake the night Stephen died wasn’t the look on his face or the things he said or the blood he spilled. It was the thought that he wasn’t alone.

From that day forward, I dedicated my life to silencing every Stephen. I did unspeakable things to those who professed the name of Jesus – things that still haunt me in the middle of the night. I destroyed families. I filled prisons. I murdered men, women and children, all in the name of God.

But even as I silenced more and more Christians, their numbers grew. The further they spread from Jerusalem, the angrier I became. I finally got a warrant to arrest every Christian in Damascas to show the world that God’s hand of judgment could reach anywhere.

During my five-day journey, I had plenty of time to work myself into a righteous fury. By the final day, I was more sure of my mission than I had been of anything in my life.

That’s when God decided to change everything.

At noon, He lit a fire in the sky brighter than the sun. Brighter than two suns. It was so bright that I couldn’t escape it – not when I covered my eyes, and not when I fell to the ground.

As I lay facedown in the dirt, I heard my name.

“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”

“Who art thou?” I cried.

The next three words shook me to my core.

“I am Jesus.”

Jesus? The false Messiah?

The voice continued speaking, but I couldn’t get past those words. Those three words that meant Jesus was alive. That maybe his followers were right. That maybe I had a lot of innocent blood on my hands.

The voice told me to go to Damascus and wait. Then the light left, and day suddenly turned to night. I couldn’t see a thing.

I got help finishing my journey to Damascus and spent the next three days unable to do anything but cry out to God. On the third day, a man named Ananias met me. He baptized me. He took away my blindness. He introduced me to the church at Damascas.

In a small room, hidden for protection from people like me, I met the men and women I had come to arrest. Families of those I had murdered. Friends of Stephen.

Finally, Ananias encouraged me to tell the church what had happened. With tears in my eyes, I stood in front of the group and said the only three things I knew for sure.

“Hello. My name is Saul. I’ve met Jesus. I’ve been transformed.”