Megumi

Recently I did a little calligraphy during one of my Japanese classes.  The Japanese style requires a paintbrush and black paint rather than a pen with a slanted tip, like the Western style.  I really wanted to do my best so that I could turn my calligraphy into a beautiful wall hanging, but I’ve only done this style one other time, and it is really difficult.  As I practiced, many times I wished that I had a delete or undo button; one small mistake could mess up the whole picture, and that really started stressing me out.  I would start out fine but inevitably make a mistake, get even more frustrated, and then make more mistakes.  Finally, I paused long enough to examine the word in front of me: megumi (grace).  Then the light bulb above my head suddenly lit up.  I was trying so hard to do my calligraphy perfectly, but that’s not how grace works.  Grace is God’s free gift of forgiveness that is not based on anything we do.  God looks at our mistakes and says, “Of course you can have another chance; Jesus died to take away those sins and mistakes of your past.”