“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.”
–John Christian

Wow, simple but powerful words.

Though the new year is young, I have already had many friends who have lost loved ones. It would be easy for me to imagine myself in their shoes and wish that the deaths had not occurred. To erase them. It would be easy to wish that I could erase the pain of their lose.

It would take me a lifetime to write down the things in my own life that I would like to erase. The sin, the pain, the choices that resulted in outcomes different than what I wanted.

Yet, if I had that power to erase, I would be erasing God. But if I choose to believe He lives, then He lives and perhaps draws me closest when I try to pull out my eraser. Those moments I want to erase are most often moments when I was broken.

As a teacher, I am also reminded that I want my students not to erase, but to put a line through their “mistakes”. That allows the teacher to see what they were thinking, their thought process. It allows them to look back also. Some times those weren’t mistakes, they were actually the right answer, or process. As we strive to finish the race, we must learn from our experiences, not erase them.

Hmm. Our God is one of opportunity. Not erasers.