The Epitaph He Wrote for Himself

John Newton drafted his own epitaph. The aging rector of St. Mary Woolnoth in London chose words of unflinching honesty: "John Newton, Clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long laboured to destroy."

Newton knew exactly what he had been. For years he captained slave ships along the West African coast, trafficking human beings across the Atlantic. A violent storm on March 10, 1748, aboard the merchant ship Greyhound, began his slow turning toward God. Yet even after that harrowing night off the coast of Donegal, Ireland, he continued in the trade for several more years before conviction fully took hold. By 1764 he was ordained in the Church of England and appointed curate at Olney, Buckinghamshire, where he penned Amazing Grace for a New Year's Day service in 1773.

Decades of faithful ministry never dulled his memory. Near the end of his life, Newton told a visitor, "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Saviour."

Paul wrote with that same raw honesty: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst" (1 Timothy 1:15). Neither Paul nor Newton wore their past as shame. They wore it as testimony.

The gospel does not ask us to forget who we were. It asks us to never forget who saved us. True transformation is not the erasure of your story. It is the rewriting of its ending by the hand of the Almighty.