I'm trying something a little different. Here's a testimony as if written by Peter the Apostle:
They called me Pebble, growing up. I do not know how the name got started, but it didn't take long for the older kids to begin pelting me with my namesake. My mother tried to comfort me, reminding me that it was with a simple pebble that King David slew a giant. Well, I decided that if they wanted a rock they were going to get a rock. I grew into a hard man, an angry man. If you would not lend me your ear then I would take it by force. I did not forget and I did not forgive. I fought with the other fishermen. I fought with the priests and the rabbis. I fought with the Romans. But mostly, I guess deep down I was still fighting against those kids who thought it was funny to call me Pebble as they threw pebbles at me. But then, after one of the longest nights of my life, after casting net after net with nothing to show for it, feeling as if for my whole life I had been sinking like a stone dropped into the sea and never hitting the bottom, and there was nobody, not even God Himself, that noticed or cared, that was when I met Him. He wanted me to follow Him. I tried to tell Him I was a worthless pebble, hard, forgotten, cast aside. He told me He too was a stone, one that had been rejected by the builders, but that if I followed Him, He and I together would be made chief stones of the corner. I was not a pebble, He told me. I was a precious stone, He said, a jewel among men. So, I followed Him, one small pebble in the company of the Rock of my Redeemer. When I was with Jesus I no longer felt like I was sinking to the bottom of the sea but was instead walking across the surface. Here in truth was the Christ, the Son of the living God, and I could not deny it. Well, it turns out there were a few times that I could deny it. I warned Him from the beginning that I was a rough stone, but Jesus has never once given up on polishing me and making me into one of His jewels, and He has blessed me over and over again with the opportunity to confess that He is the Christ, to riotous mobs and ruling councils and Roman tribunals, to jailers and even to executioners. They can keep throwing their pebbles and their stones at me but I will not deny Him. They can stand me on my head, they can nail me to a cross, but they cannot stop me from declaring that Christ lives, and that I love Him, more than all of the fish in the sea, more than all the pebbles on the beach, more than life itself. I bear you my witness in His Holy name, even Jesus Christ, Amen.
