The Blinding Light: The Radical Conversion of Saint Paul by Jeff Callaway

The Blinding Light: The Radical Conversion of Saint Paul

by Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

I. The Scene of Violence and Zeal The air was thick with fury and dust. The crowd gathered like wolves circling wounded prey. Stones flew like judgments. The first Christian martyr, Stephen, stood in the storm of hate with his eyes on Heaven, lips whispering forgiveness even as his bones cracked under the weight of stones. “Lord, do not hold this sin against them,” he prayed. The words rose to the sky and fell like mercy no one was ready to receive. And just off to the side, untouched, stood Saul—a young Pharisee with fire in his eyes and conviction in his chest. Cloaks piled at his feet. His hands were clean, but his heart was not. He didn’t lift a stone, yet he gave consent with a cold and righteous nod. In that moment, he was certain—utterly certain—that he was doing the will of God. Saul was no brute. He was educated, trained in the Law, a student of Gamaliel, steeped in Scripture and ritual. His zeal was forged in the fires of tradition and intellect. He could quote Torah like a poet and wield it like a sword. He was the kind of man who never doubted the path beneath his feet—until Heaven itself would strike him blind. To Saul, these new followers of “the Way” were dangerous dreamers—traitors to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They claimed a crucified carpenter was the Messiah. Madness, he thought. Blasphemy. And so he burned with a sense of sacred duty. He believed persecution was piety. He saw himself as the hand of divine justice, stamping out the lies before they could infect the faithful. But faith, when divorced from love, mutates into fanaticism. It was not truth that fueled Saul’s fury—it was pride wrapped in religion. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraphs 1776–1794, teaches that conscience is man’s most secret core, where he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths. Saul’s conscience, though burning bright, was warped by self-righteousness. He heard the echo of God but mistook it for his own will. He wasn’t evil in intent—he was blind in spirit. That’s the most dangerous blindness of all: the kind that mistakes zeal for holiness. And so God, in His mysterious mercy, let Saul run. He let him breathe the fire of his false righteousness, let him chase Christians from house to house, let him drag them in chains. Because sometimes Heaven allows the storm to break before it sends the calm. For the Lord knew this man—this Saul—was not beyond redemption. He knew that buried beneath all that fury was a heart that, once broken, could love Him beyond all measure. And so the stage was set. Stephen’s blood cried out from the dust. The young zealot walked away from the scene of death, proud of his part in it, unaware that Heaven had already written his name into the Book of Mercy. Before long, that same Saul—enemy of Christ—would be struck to his knees by the voice of the very One he hunted. II. Saul the Hunter – The Church’s Most Feared Enemy The stoning of Stephen lit something inside Saul—a fire that no one, not even God, would put out until it burned him down to ashes. His jaw was set, his mind locked on mission. There would be no mercy for these followers of “the Way.” He would root them out, expose them, and drag them back to Jerusalem in chains. Saul of Tarsus had become the Church’s most feared enemy, and he wore that title like armor. Armed with letters from the high priest, sealed with the authority of the Sanhedrin, he set his sights on Damascus—one of the oldest cities in the world, a place where Christians were beginning to take root. The Sanhedrin’s reach stretched far, a kind of religious court with tentacles of influence that slithered through both Temple and empire. To defy their orders was to risk everything; to carry them out was to wield divine power—or so Saul believed. He wasn’t acting as a rogue. He was acting as an agent of the establishment—a man convinced he was defending God by enforcing tradition. But history has a way of repeating its ugliest chapters, and Saul’s campaign against the early Church has the smell of every ideological purge that’s ever scorched the earth since: inquisitors who confuse holiness with hate, politicians who crucify conscience in the name of purity, mobs who chant for justice while blind to their own sin. Saul was their prototype—the religious zealot who thought righteousness was measured by how many heretics he could silence. He was brilliant. Educated. Articulate. A man who could debate any rabbi, dismantle any argument, and justify every cruelty with a quote from the Law. But brilliance without love is a loaded weapon. And Saul carried his learning like a sword. He was driven by pride disguised as obedience, convinced he was doing the work of Heaven. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2087–2089, speaks directly to this blindness: “Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith.” Saul’s sin wasn’t ignorance—it was defiance. He refused to see that truth had already walked the earth in human flesh, had died, and had risen again. His devotion to the Law had become rebellion against the very God who fulfilled it. Pride is the devil’s favorite disguise for piety. And Saul wore it perfectly. In the dark corners of Jerusalem, whispers followed him like a curse: “Saul is coming.” Christians hid their scrolls, fled their homes, prayed their last prayers. To them, he was a nightmare in daylight. To Saul, he was a soldier of God, marching under holy orders. But Heaven was watching. The same Christ Saul sought to erase was already planning his ambush—not with swords or prisons, but with mercy so blinding it would strip Saul of everything he thought he knew. Because zeal without love doesn’t make saints. It makes monsters—until the grace of God breaks them. III. The Road to Damascus – Heaven Breaks In The road to Damascus shimmered in the desert heat like a blade on an anvil. Saul of Tarsus rode with soldiers and servants beneath the white blaze of the Syrian sun, dust rising from their horses’ hooves in a ghostly cloud that trailed behind them. He was a man utterly certain of himself—certain of his mission, certain of his God, certain that this new sect calling itself The Way must be extinguished before its heresy spread like wildfire through Israel. In his saddlebags, the letters from the high priest burned like a badge of authority. They gave him legal power to hunt, arrest, and drag back in chains any man or woman who confessed the name of Jesus. He believed he was the hand of justice, the sword of righteousness. And then—heaven broke in. Scripture tells it plain and sudden: “As he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven” (Acts 9:3). It was not mere sunlight, nor lightning, nor any earthly brilliance. It was a light above the sun—a piercing radiance that reached past the flesh and into the soul. The desert fell silent. The world seemed to fold in on itself. Saul was thrown from his horse, his body striking the dirt with the thud of a man dropped by invisible hands. He blinked but saw nothing; his eyes filled with fire. The men around him stood dumbstruck, hearing a voice but seeing no one. Saul lay trembling, his proud certainty shattered like a clay pot. Then came the Voice. It was not thunder, nor was it echo—it was Being itself addressing a creature, a sound that made the bones quake and the soul kneel. “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” (Acts 9:4). The repetition of his name—Saul, Saul—was no accident. In the language of heaven, repetition means intimacy, divine urgency, and calling. God had spoken this way before: “Moses, Moses,” from the burning bush; “Samuel, Samuel,” in the quiet of the temple. Each time, it marked the beginning of a mission—and a transformation. But now, the question cut like a sword through Saul’s heart. Not why do you persecute My followers, or why do you attack My people, but why do you persecute Me? In that one sentence, Jesus Christ declared a staggering truth: He and His Church are one. “The Church,” says the Catechism (CCC 795), “is the Body of Christ. He is the Head, we are the members; together, one Christ.” For the first time, Saul’s perfect logic and fierce obedience collided with something higher—the living voice of God made man. Trembling in the dust, Saul whispered the first true prayer of his life: “Who are You, Lord?” And the answer came like judgment and mercy entwined: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” That moment—the flash, the fall, the Voice—was not just Saul’s breaking point. It was the crack in history through which divine mercy poured into a sinner’s heart. The proud hunter had met the God he hunted, and in that encounter, he was slain by grace. IV. The Blindness – Darkness Before Light The light had faded, but its scar remained. Saul opened his eyes—and saw nothing. The world, once sharp in his righteous fury, had vanished into black. He groped for air, for footing, for understanding, but the blazing certainties that once drove him had burned away, leaving only silence. The hunter of heretics was now the helpless one, his vision stolen by the same God he thought he served. Scripture captures the moment with brutal simplicity: “When his eyes were opened, he saw nothing; so they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus” (Acts 9:8). Imagine the irony: the man who had held others captive now led like a child through the streets he had meant to dominate. The proud Pharisee reduced to trembling dust. The great intellect, schooled under Gamaliel, now blind to everything he thought he understood. There, in that darkness, God began His deeper work—the breaking of a man who would later call himself “the least of the apostles” (1 Corinthians 15:9). For three days, Saul neither ate nor drank. Three days of blindness. Three days in his own kind of tomb. The parallel is unmistakable: as Christ lay buried before rising into glory, Saul lay buried in blindness before awakening to truth. The same Christ who once lay cold in the rock now burned in the mind of the man He had chosen. It was death before resurrection—death of pride, death of certainty, death of the old Saul. The Bible often treats blindness as judgment, yet here it is mercy—a divine surgery of the soul. “For judgment I came into this world,” Christ said, “that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind” (John 9:39). Saul’s temporary blindness was not punishment but purification. The eyes that had once glared in hatred now wept in darkness. God stripped him of sight so that he might finally see. Psychologically, it is the breaking point every proud man dreads: when intellect collapses and the will can no longer explain itself. The mind that sought to master divine law now lay disarmed before divine mystery. His brilliance, his logic, his zeal—all rendered powerless. There is something almost sacramental in that blindness, as if the Lord Himself anointed those useless eyes with holy night until humility could take root. The Catechism calls this metanoia—a complete turning of heart and mind (CCC 1427–1428). Conversion is not cosmetic; it is death and rebirth. It is the emptying of self that grace might fill what was hollow. Saul’s darkness was not the absence of God but His fierce, consuming presence. V. Ananias – The Reluctant Instrument of Grace In Damascus, while Saul sat shrouded in darkness, another man wrestled with light. His name was Ananias—a disciple known not for miracles or might, but for quiet faithfulness in a dangerous time. When the voice of the Lord broke into his prayer, Ananias must have thought at first it was some inner stirring, the kind that calls a man to charity or to prayer. But this call was precise, impossible to misunderstand: “Ananias.” He answered as the prophets of old once had—“Here I am, Lord.” Then came the command that must have turned his blood to ice: “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying.” (Acts 9:11) Saul. The name was a curse whispered in Christian homes. The man was a hunter, a destroyer, the one who had dragged believers from their houses in chains. For Ananias, obedience meant walking straight toward the embodiment of terror. And like Moses before the burning bush, he protested: “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem.” It was not cowardice; it was honesty. The human heart recoils at the thought of extending mercy to its persecutor. But heaven replied with a voice that brooked no debate: “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.” A chosen instrument. Not a broken enemy, not a discarded sinner—chosen. God’s grace does not wait for worthiness. It makes the unworthy useful. The Catechism says that God invites man to cooperate freely with His plan, that our works of obedience—though born of grace—are truly participations in His divine action (CCC 2008–2009). Ananias, trembling yet trusting, became that cooperation made flesh. In his obedience, grace found its channel. We can imagine him walking the dusty street called Straight, his heart pounding, rehearsing prayers under his breath. Each step was an act of defiance—not against God, but against fear. When he entered the house, the persecutor was no longer fierce but fragile. Blind. Silent. Waiting. Ananias laid his hands on Saul—not with suspicion, but with the authority of mercy. “Brother Saul,” he said. Those two words carried the full weight of heaven’s forgiveness. Not “enemy,” not “traitor”—brother. It was the Church herself, through Ananias, embracing her former persecutor. And as the scales fell from Saul’s eyes, the first sight he beheld was the face of the man who had every reason to hate him, now radiant with forgiveness. God could have healed Saul with a word, but He chose to do it through human touch—through the hands of the very people Saul had wounded. That is the scandal and glory of grace: that it flows not from the thrones of angels but from the trembling hands of the faithful. VI. The Healing and Baptism – Scales Fall from His Eyes The house was quiet when Ananias entered. Saul sat in the shadows, sightless, hollowed out by the hand of God. Three days of darkness had stripped him bare; three days of fasting had turned the proud Pharisee into a penitent waiting for mercy. The door creaked, footsteps crossed the threshold, and a hand—warm, human, trembling—rested on his head. “Brother Saul,” said Ananias, “the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” That single word—brother—must have struck deeper than any sermon. It was the first sound of grace touching Saul’s ears. In that moment, he was no longer an enemy of the Church but a member of her body. The hands of the disciple became the instrument of God’s healing power. Scripture tells us, “Immediately, something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight” (Acts 9:18). The imagery is surgical and sacred. The scales are not just physical remnants of blindness but the residue of pride, hatred, and error. What fell from Saul’s eyes symbolized what fell from his soul. He had been blind not only to Christ but to love itself—and now, by grace, he saw everything anew. The first face he beheld was that of Ananias—the very kind of man he once sought to destroy. Then, without hesitation, Saul rose and was baptized. No delay, no second thoughts. The zeal that once drove him to persecute now drove him to submit. Water poured over the persecutor’s head, washing away the blood he had spilled, the anger that had ruled him, the darkness that had blinded him. The man who once sought to cleanse the Temple of Christ’s followers was now cleansed by Christ Himself. The Catechism calls baptism “the gateway to life in the Spirit,” a rebirth that washes away sin and marks the soul with an indelible seal (CCC 1262–1274). It is more than ritual; it is resurrection. In that humble act, Saul the destroyer died and Paul the apostle was born. This is where every true conversion leads—to the font. Not to emotion or mere conviction, but to the sacrament that remakes the soul. The scales that fall from the eyes of the penitent are the same that fall from the heart: self-sufficiency, rebellion, the delusion of control. In their place comes the clarity of grace—the sight that sees Christ in all things. I know that blindness. I’ve lived it. The night I saw Christ and the Virgin—when I was at the edge of despair, when death seemed like the only mercy—the same scales fell from my life. All the darkness I’d built with sin cracked open, and light poured in. Like Saul, I was remade. The drugs, the rage, the self-worship—all of it burned away. And when I entered the Catholic Church, when that holy water touched my skin, I felt what Paul must have felt: not just forgiveness, but new birth. The miracle of conversion isn’t that God forgives—it’s that He recreates. VII. The First Preaching – From Predator to Prophet The city that once trembled at Saul’s name now trembled for a different reason. Word spread through the narrow streets of Damascus that the persecutor had returned—but not in chains, and not with soldiers. He came instead with Scripture on his lips, light in his eyes, and the name of Jesus burning in his heart. Acts tells it plainly: “And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’” (Acts 9:20) There was no hesitation, no slow easing into faith. Saul did not need time to recover his confidence—he had traded it for conviction. The same mouth that once demanded blasphemers be stoned now shouted the name he once despised. The irony must have stunned his audience. In the synagogues, murmurs rose like wind through dry grass: “Isn’t this the man who destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem? Didn’t he come here to arrest them and drag them before the chief priests?” (Acts 9:21) Their disbelief was justified. The transformation seemed too violent, too complete, too sudden to be real. Yet that was precisely the point. Grace doesn’t reform—it resurrects. Saul’s preaching grew in strength and clarity. Scripture says he “confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ” (Acts 9:22). The hunter had become the herald. The inquisitor, now the illuminated. The very zeal that once fueled destruction had been redirected into proclamation. His words cut through doubt with the same precision that his persecutions once had. There is something in conversion that cannot be contained. The Catechism teaches that mission is the natural outpouring of faith—that the Church, by her nature, is missionary because she participates in the very mission of Christ (CCC 849–851). The soul that has truly met the living God cannot help but bear witness. Saul’s conversion wasn’t an inward revelation kept secret—it erupted into public truth. You can almost hear his first sermon echoing through those ancient halls: a Pharisee quoting Moses, a scholar unraveling prophecy, a man burning with the realization that the Law he had defended was fulfilled in the very Messiah he had hunted. Each word was an act of penance, a confession wrapped in courage. That’s how God works—He doesn’t erase a man’s fire, He purifies it. The traits that once made Saul dangerous now made him unstoppable. The passion, the intellect, the fierce conviction—all still there, but baptized, redirected, redeemed. And that’s the proof of true conversion. When God changes a man, He doesn’t make him quieter—He makes him truer. I’ve felt that fire myself. After my own blindness lifted, after the weight of sin fell away, I couldn’t shut up about it either. The same voice that once cursed now confesses. The same mouth that spoke rebellion now speaks resurrection. For both Saul and me, the miracle wasn’t just survival—it was speech. When God saves you, He gives you back your voice, and with it, the unshakable need to shout His name. VIII. The Plot Against His Life – The Cost of Conversion It didn’t take long for the tide to turn. The same men who once cheered Saul as their champion now whispered his death. Word had spread through Damascus: the persecutor had switched sides. The enforcer of the Sanhedrin was preaching the gospel of the crucified criminal. To Saul’s former allies, it was betrayal of the highest order. At first, they were merely stunned. Then, humiliated. Then, furious. The man they had trusted to stamp out the Church was now breathing the same dangerous air as the apostles. He had become what he once hunted—a blasphemer in their eyes, a traitor to his people, a heretic wrapped in revelation. Scripture records it simply: “After many days had passed, the Jews plotted together to kill him.” (Acts 9:23) You can almost see the paranoia grow in their faces, the plans drawn in shadow. The hunter was now the hunted. The nets he had once woven for others began to close around him. Word reached the Christians, and they moved quickly. In the dark of night, Saul’s new brothers—the same kind of men and women he once terrorized—took him to the city wall. They found a window high above the street, tied ropes to a basket, and lowered him down like contraband. It’s one of the most human moments in Scripture: the great Apostle to the Gentiles making his escape not in glory but in silence, swaying in a basket against a cold stone wall. The man who once rode into towns with soldiers and letters of authority now fled under cover of night, unarmed, unseen, saved by the very community he had despised. The symbolism is deep: the proud Saul who once stood tall in power now humbled, lowered by love, descending into the anonymity of discipleship. Grace always costs something. When you follow Christ, you lose the world that once accepted you. The applause fades, the invitations stop, the old friends turn their eyes away. The Catechism teaches that suffering and persecution are part of sharing in Christ’s Cross (CCC 618). Redemption is not painless—it is participation in the Passion itself. To bear Christ’s name means to bear His wounds. Saul learned that early. His first lesson as a Christian wasn’t triumph—it was exile. His first miracle wasn’t raising the dead—it was surviving the death others planned for him. The very people he thought were his brothers now saw him as a curse. But that’s how real conversion works—it tears you from the old world and roots you in a new one. I’ve lived that loss too. When I turned from the darkness I once served, I lost the crowd that called me brother. Old habits, old companions, old vices—they all conspired to drag me back. But like Saul, I had to be lowered out of that life, rescued by the rope of grace. The cost of conversion isn’t measured in comfort—it’s measured in the weight of the Cross you’re willing to carry. Saul carried it from that night forward, and so must we. IX. The New Man – Paul the Apostle Saul returned to Jerusalem not as a conqueror, not as a lawmaker, not as the man whose name had once cast fear into the hearts of Christians. He came quietly, humbly, with a fire burning that was nothing like the old flames of pride and vengeance. The streets he had once dominated with letters of authority now seemed strange, almost hostile, as if the city itself remembered the terror he had brought. He walked them anyway, his head lowered, aware of every stare, every whispered name. He was a changed man, yet the evidence of change was invisible except to God and, perhaps, to those brave enough to see it. The apostles heard the news of his arrival and recoiled. Their minds flashed back to the day he held the cloaks of Stephen’s executioners, the arrests he had orchestrated, the letters he had carried from the high priest to hunt them like animals. Fear mingled with suspicion: could a man who had once hunted them now be trusted? Their instinct was to turn away, to protect themselves, to let this shadow pass. Saul understood that fear. He felt it in every step, every glance from those who had reason to hate him. Barnabas, whose gift was seeing truth beneath appearances, intervened. He found Saul, brought him to the apostles, and told the story. The blinding light, the voice of Christ, the fall to the ground, the three days of darkness, the touch of Ananias, the baptism. Barnabas spoke with certainty and compassion, and slowly, the apostles began to understand. Saul was no longer Saul in the old sense; he was reborn, remade, a man who carried a new authority rooted not in fear but in grace. Once accepted, his mission began almost immediately. He went to the synagogues, first tentatively, then with a growing boldness. Every word he spoke was a proclamation of Jesus Christ, Son of God. The same intellect and skill he had once used to dismantle arguments and persecute believers he now used to preach, to reason, to illuminate. People whispered, stared, even plotted, but Saul was not the same man they had known. The hunter had become the herald; the enforcer had become the evangelist. The danger never left him. Old allies, enraged by his transformation, plotted against him again. But Saul walked through their threats with a new courage. Fear had lost its grip. Every step he took was both obedience and defiance: obedience to the call of Christ, defiance against the instincts that had once made him proud and violent. Conversion, he now understood, is not a moment—it is a life. It is perseverance in the face of fear, it is action in the midst of suspicion, it is faith when the world no longer welcomes you. Saul, the former persecutor, carried the scars of the old life but no longer allowed them to dictate his path. He had been remade. He had been given purpose. He had been chosen. And with each step in Jerusalem, he began the work that would carry him across nations, through prisons, through shipwrecks, and into the history of the Church as Paul the Apostle. X. The Takeaway – What Paul’s Conversion Means for Us Paul’s conversion is not just a story of one man on one road—it is a mirror for every soul willing to turn. The Damascus Road teaches that conversion is both instantaneous and ongoing: a single moment of encounter that shatters the old self, and a lifelong process of growth, obedience, and witness. Saul fell to the ground in blinding light, and in that instant, his world collapsed. Yet even as his eyes opened to see Christ, his journey had only begun. Humility replaced pride, mercy replaced vengeance, and the fire that once burned to destroy now burned to redeem. The progression is unmistakable: blindness became sight, stubbornness became obedience, death became resurrection. Each of us experiences our own Damascus Road, though not always as dramatically. Every sin, every hardened heart, every moment we cling to self over God is a step into our personal darkness. And like Saul, we are called to surrender, to fall, to allow God’s mercy to strike us into newness. The Catechism reminds us that conversion involves a metanoia—a turning of heart and mind—followed by a call to mission (CCC 1427–1428, 849–851). We do not encounter grace merely to be saved; we encounter it to be sent. Every Christian life is meant to radiate the truth that has rescued it. Paul’s story also reminds us that grace often comes violently, unexpectedly, even uncomfortably. It shatters the illusions we cling to, strips us of pride, and demands obedience. His first sight after blindness was not of power or comfort, but of a man willing to be vulnerable in mercy—Ananias. The mercy of Christ flows through human hands, through humble instruments, and it transforms both the giver and the receiver. The closing image endures: Saul opening his eyes to blinding truth. The light is so bright it overwhelms, it disorients, it destroys the old self—and in that destruction, a new life begins. Our own eyes must open in the same way, to see mercy, to see the Church as Christ’s body, to see that the world we once trusted will never offer the satisfaction God gives. Every Christian is called to that light, to that surrender, to that relentless pursuit of holiness born from grace. Conversion is not merely a story from Scripture; it is the heartbeat of Christian existence. It begins with encounter, continues through struggle, and finds its purpose in mission. The Damascus Road is not behind us—it is under our feet, in every choice, every fall, every act of obedience. Like Saul, we are summoned to see, to repent, to rise, and to go proclaim the truth that has claimed our lives. Conclusion True conversion is not a single moment—it is a battlefield and a refuge at once, a daily reckoning with the shadows that cling, and a persistent rising into the light. It starts with a flash, a voice, a force that shatters the certainties built by pride and sin, but it does not end there. Every day becomes a Damascus Road. Every choice, every prayer, every act of mercy or restraint, a measure of the grace that remade the soul. The old self dies slowly, in fits and tremors, in moments of temptation, in times when anger rises or weakness calls. The fire of transformation burns quietly as much as it blazes. Nights once haunted by chaos and vice give way to mornings of clarity, responsibility, and the discipline of prayer. Words that once cursed now bless. Hands that once destroyed now create and serve. Eyes that once saw only darkness begin to see the faces of those who need mercy, the suffering that calls for compassion, the beauty that had always been obscured. Conversion does not erase scars—it sanctifies them. Every misstep becomes a reminder of the power of grace. Every triumph over sin becomes a testament to God’s enduring work in the soul. The journey is relentless. The road is narrow, often lonely, and filled with the temptation to drift back into familiar darkness. But each day lived in obedience, each act of humility, each moment of patience and understanding, proves the transformation is real. The fruits of true conversion are quiet yet unmistakable: forgiveness where there would have been rage, peace where there would have been chaos, a clarity of purpose that no worldly power can imitate. Even now, the process continues. A life reshaped by mercy requires vigilance, courage, and honesty. There are still challenges, still struggles with fear, anger, and temptation, but the old patterns no longer dominate. Prayer rises before every day, the Word anchors every decision, the Mass restores what weakness would try to steal. The soul, once scattered, now carries a mission—not for glory or gain, but to live the truth that saved it, to shine it into the lives of others, and to witness that God’s power is stronger than any darkness. Conversion is never finished. It is lived, breathed, and fought for every day. It is the scales falling, the eyes opening, the light that burns brighter than pride and fear. It is resurrection in motion. And for those who answer the call, the same mercy that transformed the persecutor on the Damascus Road continues to transform, endlessly and faithfully, shaping hearts into instruments of grace for the world.

~ by Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

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