Mistakes erased, as promised

"writing with my own hand"

Philemon 1:19

I was at a gathering with friends a few weeks ago, and the hostess had a few gifts for all of us.

Just little things ~ a sachet of potpourri, a small notepad, and a brightly colored pencil.

{Parenthetically, are you like me?  Do you have a love for office supplies?  Pencils, pens, highlighters... crisp new legal pads or spiral notebooks... they just stimulate creativity, don't they?

Not to mention organizational tools that make me want to go home and rethink how I have everything organized, even if it's working fine the way it's currently organized...}

So we all got one of these fun, cheerful pencils.  But here's the sad part:  we each also got an eraser, too.  One of those small, pointed ones that fits on the end of a pencil.  Why is that sad?  Because I was glad to get one.  Because I knew there was a good chance that the eraser that was already on the pencil wouldn't be that good.  So often they aren't.  Either they leave a gray streak on the paper, or they're so rough they tear it.  So I knew I was probably would be needing that eraser.  And if I didn't need it for that pencil, I could use it for one of the cute, fun, bad-erasing pencils I have at home. 

When I got home and sharpened that pencil, and started using it, I found out that actually, that eraser worked just fine.  Happy, happy, joy, joy!  So I put the eraser on another pencil, which is also cute and fun, but with an eraser that doesn't work.  A few days later I used that other pencil, made a mistake, and started to erase.

And the eraser broke.  Tore.  A crack up the side.  And it fell off the pencil.  The very first time I used it.

*sigh*

A pencil with an attached eraser is supposed to do two jobs:  write and erase.  A pencil-tip eraser is supposed to do two jobs:  hang on to the pencil and erase.  Is it so much to ask that these products do what they were designed to do?

It makes me grateful for God's promises to forgive and forget all our sins ~ to erase them. 

And grateful that He keeps His promises.

~ "He will again have compassion on us,

and will subdue our iniquities.

You will cast all our sins

Into the depths of the sea." ~

Micah 7:19

~