My Words to Live By

What is success? To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty; To find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; That is to have succeeded. - Ralph Waldo Emerson


Giving God the Eraser

Have you ever heard the saying "Write your plans in pencil and give God the eraser"?

In a devotional book I discovered as I was packing away one of my many bookshelves (Have I mentioned we sold our house in a week and have found no where to move?? More on that later), I happened upon that simple quote this week and it got me thinking.

I can't stand when things don't go as planned (I'm going nuts knowing I have to move in a few weeks & have no clue where I'm moving!). I push forward with determination to make things end up the way I want them to end, which is great as a writer because it means I get my story finished by my deadline, but not so great as a Christian woman. I'm not good at giving God the eraser.

When I don't like how my life story is going (ex: no place to live starting in July!), I treat it just like my fictional stories. I erase the lines myself and write and rewrite over and over again until my eraser is bare and the page hardly legible from pencil smudges (and my hair is falling out and I'm exhausted), trying to get every piece of the storyline exactly how I think it should be. I try to force the outcome I want, the happy ending we find in books. Sound familiar?? I know I'm not the only one who is a control freak :)

But our lives aren't stories in a book.
How often does God have to jerk the pencil out of your hands or even snatch the paper away because you just refuse to stop trying to fix it yourself?
Give Him the eraser today and let Him be the author of your story.

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