The Red Pen Wrote Me Hope

Lyrics

I kept a school exercise book in a box beneath the stairs
Pages full of crooked lines and clumsy, hopeful prayers
And in the margin, small and neat, in red against the page
A teacher's hand had written words I read at every age

Not a grade and not a warning, not a number or a mark
But a sentence in the margin that was lit like a spark
It said, you have a way of seeing, do not let it go
And I did not, I kept it, though I did not quite know

The red pen wrote me hope
In the margin of my fear
A little word, a little kindness
That I carried through the years
When the world has told me no
When I've doubted what I am
The red pen wrote me hope
And I know I'll find my plan

I am standing now on a stage the size of all I dreamed
And the lights are very bright, though not the way they seemed
I hold the little book against my heart before I sing
And I hear her quiet voice in everything

The red pen wrote me hope
In the margin of my fear
A little word, a little kindness
That I carried through the years
When the world has told me no
When I've doubted what I am
The red pen wrote me hope
And I know I'll find my plan

She will never know the half of it
The way a line can grow
The way a single sentence
Can teach a heart to go

The red pen wrote me hope
In the margin of my fear
A little word, a little kindness
That I carried through the years
When the world has told me no
When I've doubted what I am
The red pen wrote me hope
And I know I'll find my plan

Do not let it go
Do not let it go