Spend (and be spent)

I sat down at my desk and pulled the large sketchbook over. The day before I had sketched a couple of line drawings for the magazine next quarter, and I now had a few pages of "nonsense:" scribbles that I'd done to try and get it right. I decided to erase the nonsense so I could make profitable use of those pages.

I started with an eraser. Perfectly smooth end, rounded, firm: you know, the kind of eraser everyone likes. 

 I had 2 kinds of lines to erase. Some were light and would come off easy...

But I had some others that I had scribbled with a bit more zeal. They were dark. Like, really dark.

I set to work with the eraser. I found it to be pretty simple; after all, the lines were coming off. But I had to push awful hard sometimes... and my eraser started leaving pieces of itself all over the paper that seemed to get in the way and make the job even harder.

When I finished, my perfect eraser was no longer perfect. It was no longer smooth and nicely rounded on the ends. And it had lost lots of pieces of itself that I had littered all over the desk, the mousepad, the keyboard.

And, too, even though I had given it my best--even though I had pushed as hard as I could without completely destroying my paper, it had some leftover lines on it. Scars, if you will.

However, when you looked at the big picture, it was useful again. It was clean. Because of the eraser.

We daily make a mess of our lives. We scribble and scratch, trying to "get it just right," and in the process, we ruin many days, months, years of our lives. Left to our own devices, we'd be sketchbooks full of nothing but deep stains, dark scratched lines, and vain scribbles.

But. A long time ago. There was an Artist who wanted to make use of you, of me. And He took His perfect Eraser and laid the smooth edge to our rough, ruined surfaces...and began to erase.

It took a long time.

And when He finished, that perfect Eraser was no longer be perfect. It was marred. It left pieces of itself all over my pages, having spent itself that I might be clean. Whole. Useful. And that's when the Artist took up the pencil and began to create a masterpiece.

There are days when I snatch the pencil and scribble away. I make a mess again. But when I see the mess, my heart melts and I return the pencil to His hand, He smiles and picks up the Eraser again. And after some work, I'm clean all over again. And He keeps working.

That Eraser is spent a little more every time I make a mess, that I might be better.

And here I am, selfish, mercenary little heart hoarding like a miser blessings for myself.

I have been ashamed, looking back recently, at the selfishness of my own behavior; and in turn, have been humbled by the selflessness of some who have seen me at my best and worst.

I want to be an eraser.

To spend.
And be spent.
That someone else might be better.