Scribbles

Tonight at praise team practice for church this weekend, our worship leader thought we should sing a verse not written on our sheet music, the 3rd verse of “Jesus Paid it All”. So we had to go down into the pews and grab hymnals. We rarely use them, and apparently they are used more often for coloring books than an encyclopedia of songs. The hymnal I had chosen looked alright, but just as I turned to the correct page, I saw some child had scribbled in pencil all over the song. The notes and words were covered in a dull silver. Somehow, just looking away and picking a new hymnal seemed wrong. I took a pencil with a full eraser and began the slow process of clearing the page of the scribbles. In a few minutes all the pencil lead was gone, but you could still see where the scribbles had been because of the etches left behind.

I continued to flip through the book checking for more pencil lead to clear away and as I thumbed through I fixed the bent corners and pages. When I was all done, which only took a few minutes, I looked at the book. Not perfect, but clean. I looked the eraser, still full, as though I’d hardly put a dent in it. I probably could have cleaned a few more hymnals actually.

Sometimes I look at life like a hymnal. The years all compiled together into different songs I’d made or people had put in my lives. But what happens when those beautiful songs are suddenly clouded by the scribbles of my sin? When my pages are bent and crumpled at the corners because of harsh use?

Jesus comes along. Though He does not just happen to pick me up, like I did the hymnal. No, Jesus picks me for a reason. He flips through my pages and sees the scribbles. He picks up love’s eraser and begins to clean the pages. He checks for other scribbles and mends the bent corners. Unlike my attempt at fixing, Jesus fixes even the etches until the pages are crisp and clean as if they were right off the press. Clean and perfect in His sight. But I am far from perfect. I will continue to mess up, but the scribbles won’t be there, for God has made me new with love’s eraser.

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