The Magic Screen and Do-Overs

When I was a kid I had an Etch-A-Sketch. I loved it. Today is the anniversary of its emergence onto the American scene. It was originally called The Magic Screen.

Lots of times in my life I have wished I could just give myself a little shake, and all the scribbly messy stuff I had scrawled upon my life story would disappear. Poof. Like magic. Maybe that's why I liked my Etch-A-Sketch so much. Any time I wanted I could have a Do-Over. I love Do-Overs. You get them in four square, and sometimes in Egyptian War (the card game I play with my kids), depending on who called the rules, on your Etch-A-Sketch, and with Jesus. That's about it.

Maybe that's why I love Jesus so much, too.

I read a quote recently that said, "Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past." I've been mulling that one over for a while. I think maybe Jesus is trying to tell me something here, because He keeps hitting me over the head with stuff that says the same thing in a slightly different way. He has to do that with me sometimes. I call it The Two By Four Method. I have forced Him to resort to it, but He takes it all in stride. He isn't discouraged easily, I've noticed.

One thing I do know, that I can't quite get around, is the fact that if you OVERDID it on your Etch-A-Sketch--you know...you did the same move over and over and OVER again in the same spot, the mark would sort of stay there. It would leave just the slightest impression that wouldn't go away, no matter that you shake the dang thing so hard you give yourself a pain in the neck like whiplash.

I think that's where I am right now, or am maybe just barely beginning to get away from: that obsessive examination of the marks that are still there, the shaking of myself, and the pain. And Jesus... He just patiently waits and loves me, calling me to stop focusing on those marks and begin a lovely new work of art--a fanciful new creation all my own. I can hear Him. I just can't QUITE tear my gaze away from those troublesome marks. But I will. I can feel it happening.