pencils

i have a book i write in a lot...kind of like a journal but to me its more than that. i doodle, sketch, freewrite, take notes, jot down reminders-everything- in this little book. anyway this is what i wrote today...just a thought. i read it to dad and he said i should post it on my blog. so this is just one of the many thoughts from my notebook entitled "the ramblings of a college student: the thoughts, doodles, tangents, excitement and fear of an eighteen year old freshman." (hence the name of the blog)

pencils:

why is it that we forget the pencil as we get older? it's such a great little invention, but somehow we get swept up in the world of pens. we have this stigma about pencils because they can be eliminated. erased. for some reason, we feel the need for everything to be permanent and so we turn to ink. we feel like ink is final. even if you mark through it, it is still there and it's obvious that a mistake is being hidden. in my eyes, the world is a realm of ink.  we feel like everything we do, every choice we make is permanent. and to an extent, it is. we can't go back in time or click on edit and scroll down to "undo" but fortunately, it's because none of that is necessary. my God is not a God of ink. He is a pencil user. that's right...God uses pencils. at least i think so. He uses pencil when it comes to us. of course some things are in ink- His word, His plans and His purpose for us- but He hands us a pencil to use in our life journey.  we can scribble all over His plans and doodle on His purpose.  we sketch out our own blueprints and shade our lives with sin and for some reason, we think we're using pen. in our minds, everything that we have sketched or doodled or scribbled or shaded is permanent. and when we finally realize that we have made a mistake, we try to cover it up and hide it by making heavier marks on top of it. but all that does is make the mistake darker both literally and metaphorically. that mark is now more obvious and the pain is more severe because of the effort that is going into hiding the fluke. but we're wrong. we forget that God didn't hand us a pen, He handed us a pencil.  when we ask for His forgiveness, He simply goes in and erases the marks. sure, it may be a little smudgy in our eyes and we may be able to see the imprints that it left in the page, but God sees it as gone- He forgets the mistake was ever there. It has been erased and He doesn't hesitate to overlook it.  my dad taught me an eraser trick when i was little. i still vividly remember what he told me.  he said that the easier you are with the eraser, the better the mark will come out no matter how dark it is. i think that's why God is so effective. He makes it clear and realizes that there is a mistake, but He is so gentle when erasing the mark. He is so easy with us and loves on us the whole way through the cleansing process. then there's satan who deceives us and makes us think that he is going to fix the problem but all he does is press the eraser too hard so it engraves it into the paper permanently.  he makes the fluke stand out rather than fade. he makes it impossible to forget and every time you look at the paper, he will never fail to remind you that the stain is there.  thats why i love and worship and celebrate God, my God. He is so gentle and loving and astounding. why praise anyone else?

so that's just a tiny little snippet of what's inside my book...if you want to hear more from it...well good luck. haha. i'm sure there will be more posts from the book in the future but as for now, that's it. nighty night!