Recorded in February 1993 during a two-day seminar led by Rich Mullins and Beaker at LeSEA Broadcasting Studios in South Bend, Indiana.

I don't know what you do up here in northern Indiana, but I know where I came from, on Friday nights we'd get in our dad's trucks because they used to build those trucks so that you could run over anything and it wouldn't hurt 'em. And you know, the old gravel roads, they just ran straight for miles and miles and miles. You never had to turn your car 'cause you were always going in one direction until you wanted to go in another direction. Then you had to wait till you came to a road to make a turn and then you'd make the turn and then you'd go straight in that direction for a long way. It was pretty easy driving so what we always liked to do was we liked to go as far out in the country as we could get, to where there weren't any houses or anything that we could find, and then you'd go just about as fast as you'd dare go and then you'd turn the lights out in the truck in the middle of the night.

It wasn't a real smart thing to do. Luckily, they built those old trucks really sturdily and our dads always just thought that they were getting beat up out in the field. They didn't know it was someone else's field.

So one time I was driving from Philadelphia. I had to drive down to Miami, Florida, from Philadelphia – I was going down, I think it's Interstate 95, through Maryland, which I don't normally think of as being a beautiful part of the world, but it's shocking how beautiful Maryland is. Of course, it was about two o'clock in the morning and it was a full moon and so just about any place is pretty at two in the morning with a full moon if you're all by yourself.

I started to think about how, when we were kids, we used to turn those lights out and drive a little bit too fast on gravel roads, and I wondered if I could still see by moonlight like I could when I was younger. So I looked around to make sure there weren't any cars and clicked 'em off right there in Maryland. Only this time I didn't drive too fast because this time I wasn't quite so young anymore and I had gotten in the habit of trying to soak up things instead of speed by 'em.

Looking at Maryland I began to think of just the goodness that I was not blind. Sometimes you have to go to Maryland to remember what a joy it is to see. But then I began to think that even if I was in Brooklyn, with that moon, if there was a power shortage and there weren't any lights to interrupt, probably even Brooklyn would be pretty with that moon.

I remembered how it used to look when you'd drive in the spring and the corn was just beginning to come up and the rows were real short. You know, sometimes we think everything is changing, but the same moon is up there tonight. And the same stars that Abraham saw. They're all up there. And the same God that put them there and made them shine, He's still there, too. And I don't know what life has for you. I don't know what life has for me. But I know this, I know that God is good. I know that God does not lie. And I know that God has given us the gift of our lives. Sometimes we wish He would have given us someone else's life, but He chose to give you your life. Don't despair of it.

The preceding monologue was taken from the CD and DVD scrapbook entitled Here in America. Visit our artist page for Rich Mullins to read learn more about his life, view his discography, and read some of his other monologues. Also be sure to read our review of Here in America for full details on that album. You can listen to song clips and purchase his music at Musicforce.com.

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