Writing On a Stained Page
- Pastor Jay Christianson
- Jan 30
- 4 min read
A hot, steamy cuppa joe in the morning is a sublime, simple pleasure.
What’s even more pleasing is that my darling wife, who gets up much earlier than I to prepare for work, starts the coffee and brings me a fresh, minutes-old mug of heaven as I’m propped up in bed, reading the daily Bible portion, followed by the news.
sigh
I keep a spiral notepad on the nightstand next to the bed to record ideas. For some reason, my head is much clearer, and my mind is more creative and productive right after I wake up. So, the pad and pen are stationed nearby in case of a brainstorm (or just a drop of insight).
The other day, I noticed my coffee cup had sloshed a little, and a few small rivulets of heaven’s nectar trickled down and stained the top page of my notepad.
The wet coffee spill had already dried, which, if damp, would have prevented me from jotting down thoughts. The wetness was gone, but the stain remained. I realized I could still write upon the page and decided to salvage it. Even though the stain reminded me of the pleasure of my morning coffee, it sullied the beauty of a blank page just waiting for a profoundly excellent idea to be inscribed.
But, in the end, the stained page will be torn off, leaving a fresh white page for a new beginning.
The downside to this present darkness in which we live is that from the moment we’re born, our lives are stained by sin. Yes, God forgives and cleanses us, and at salvation we receive a resurrected spirit (Ephesians 2:1-5), and our minds are renewed daily (Romans 12:2). However, the effects of sin still resonate in and through us. No? Then why do we age? Why do we struggle to keep our wills aligned with our Father’s will? Why do we battle with memories and emotional pain?
Stains on the page of our lives.
However, the focus should not be on the stain, but the writing on the page. Even now, as I glance at my torn-off note to my left, I don’t concentrate on the stain. My attention is on the writing. So much so that I forget the coffee stain on the page, which I can never remove. But then again, I’m not supposed to. It’s just there. The stain doesn’t obscure the letters, words, or sentences that convey what I’ve produced. Those elements speak for themselves. The stain just sits there.
The writing is more important than the stain.
The foreground has more meaning than the background. Oddly enough, the stain adds a curious interest to the page as I overwrite it or write around it, adding it into my literary design.
So, I lived with the stain and kept writing.
It’s not the slop of the stain, but the skill of the writer that makes the missive impactful—the thought, the style, and emotion—the voice that emerges from the writing, not the stain on the page. It’s the voice of the writing, not the silence of the stain, which speaks.
That morning, I turned the page and voila! A fresh start. A pure white page, unstained by my careless actions.
Every Christian lives with a stained life. Our minds, wills, and emotions reveal it. Goodness knows, our bodies reveal it. Our battles with sin, our failures and triumphs, all of these things stain our lives, and we’ll carry that stain with us until it’s time to turn the page at the very end. Then, we’ll be ready to write a new story on an unstainable page, thanks to Jesus.
In the meantime, let’s not focus on the stain we carry. First, there’s nothing we can do about it. Jesus has forgiven and cleansed us of sin. But how it has impacted us, we’ll have to carry. It may fade with time, but I’m convinced we’ll never lose it until the old page has been torn away, revealing the new one underneath. Secondly, the writing is more important than the page. As we walk with the Lord, our lives become a missive for the world to read, a collection of letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters written by His hand upon the page of our lives, overwriting whatever smear or smudge we’ve picked up along the way.
The writing is more important than the page. The page stains, the page will turn, but what we’ve written on our lives for the Lord will remain forever.
And as we live for Jesus’ glory, all that writing will chronicle a remarkable story of our Father’s loving mercy.
Keep writing, saint.
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Shining the Light of God’s Truth on the Road Ahead
Pastor Jay Christianson
The Truth Barista, Frothy Thoughts