Pencil Grace

The notes in pencil, make it easy to change the song the next time around.

One of the first things I was given when I joined the church choir, besides a choir book, was a pencil. I couldn’t imagine what in the world I would need with a pencil in the choir. We are singers, not writers

Turns out, we are note takers. Music is like a foreign language to those of us who don’t read it and I don’t. I have to write down things like who is singing a solo and when we are all supposed to come in. I even have to write in when to breathe.

Can you imagine not knowing when to breathe? But, in the world of choir, we can’t just breathe anytime we want to. We have to breathe before long notes. We can’t breathe in the middle of a word and perhaps most importantly, we have to breathe together.

Choir is definitely a team deal and working together is of the utmost importance.

But, as we are handed out different pieces to sing each week, I often find notes already written in the margins by someone who sang a particular piece before I did. Sometimes it reminds us to do the same thing as before, like to hold a note out for a certain amount of time. But, sometimes the margin note tells us to do something completely different and we have to erase it, because we aren’t doing it that way this time around.

And therein lies the beauty of the pencil. Pencil marks can be erased. I have never found anything written in a choir book in ink. It’s always in pencil. The pencils allow the song to be completely changed into something beautiful and unique every time it is sung.

Those choir books and their pencil marks got me to thinking about how often we make marks that we shouldn’t have made on all types of situations. We sometimes say things we shouldn’t have said. We sometimes do things we shouldn’t have done and we walk around feeling like there can’t possibly be forgiveness of our mistakes.

We feel like our marks are made in dark Sharpie markers or at the very least, in ink. Ink is permanent.

But, Jesus teaches us another way. Because we have Jesus, our sins, our mistakes, are written in pencil. His death and resurrection act as the perfect eraser and when we go to Him and confess our sins, we end up with perfectly white space to begin again.

Like those choir books, we are free to create a new and beautiful song in a way that is unique to each of us. Some erasable pencil marks reminded me that grace gives us the gift of beginning each day with a fresh start.

Sometimes I need reminding. Perhaps you needed reminding too.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂