**[Verse 1]**
Gravel popping under tires, feels like a lifetime gone
Same white steeple in my windshield, same old Sunday song
Pull up slow beside the curb where I once bled into dawn
Half expect that gun to vanish… but it’s right where I moved on Dust around it, metal browned, grip all cracked and worn
Little grave I dug in daylight for the man I was before
Church door creaks like it remembers every line I crossed
Every siren in the distance, every name I damn near lost
**[Pre-Chorus]**
Wind blows through that open door
Smells like mercy, dust, and worn-out boards
**[Chorus]**
I laid my gun in God’s shadow and I walked away
Thought that broken man I was would haunt me to my grave
But I’ve got years between those steps and who I am today
Still I stand here shaking, staring at that rust and faith
I laid my gun in God’s shadow… but He ain’t left this place
**[Verse 2]**
Old boy at the corner store still eyes me when I buy my gas
Preacher’s wife out on the sidewalk pauses when I’m driving past
Folks here don’t forget the headlines or the devil I once fed
They still talk about that morning like the town woke up half-dead But every Sunday this front porch fills with choir and crooked hearts
Kids that never knew my story chasing shadows in the yard
And through whispers on these sidewalks, through the looks I still feel burn
There’s this pistol on these church house steps that says men can turn
**[Pre-Chorus]**
I don’t reach down, I don’t pick it up
Just nod once at what I was
**[Chorus / Outro]**
I laid my gun in God’s shadow and I walked away
Left that dead-end kind of life and all my hell-bent rage
This whole town recalls my worst, they don’t owe me a clean slate
But this rusted little witness says I didn’t stay that way
I laid my gun in God’s shadow… and it’s still in its place
Let ‘em talk about that morning
I’m not that man they faced
evoman
