I was feeling pretty good with my summer skirt and sandals. It always feels like new clothes when you haven’t worn them for six months or so!
Then, I had the first customer of the day at work – an older man who needed some copies. I went about filling his order as he talked to me over the counter. He noticed the tattooed band of flowers around my left ankle and said, “I just don’t understand why women today think they need to get tattoos.”
I ignored him.
He noticed that I didn’t take the bait so he got a little bit bolder. He said that he had been a Marine and that he had tattoos on his arms but that it was OK for men. He asked again why women thought they needed to get tattoos. He added this time that “women just don’t know their place anymore.”
I finished his copies as quickly as possible before I said something that cost me my job.
As he departed – with his caveman knuckles dragging on the ground! – I was left with thoughts about why I could never explain to him the ways that my tattoo is probably the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. Why it’s a thing that can never be taken away from me. And why freedom of expression is such an important thing – even if no one else understands.
For me, getting a tattoo was a spiritual, healing experience.
About five years ago Clifton UMC, in Cincinnati, held a conference for accepting and affirming United Methodist congregations. I was asked if I would like to preach. I accepted.
It was an incredible conference with many gifted people who led workshops and discussions. Jimmy Creech, a former UM pastor who now is one of the leaders of Soulforce, with Mel White, was there to give the keynote address.
I was pretty nervous to preach in front of a couple hundred people and I felt completely UNQUALIFIED and INCAPABLE. I wanted so badly just to go home. But, I preached and it felt good.
A few weeks later I got an envelope in the mail with a nice letter saying that conference participants had filled out surveys and that my sermon had been the high point of the day. That made me feel really good, but I felt even better when I discovered a check for $500 in the envelope too!
After much thought, I decided to spend the money on a tattoo.
I designed what I wanted. The flowers around my ankle are personal reminders of strength. My life is full of scars. Places where I have been broken. Places where I bled. Places that I worked hard to heal. Places that I allowed God to touch and make strong. And, my tattoo reminds me that above everything else, the scars were worth the fight.
As a Christian – as a person redeemed by Jesus – when I get to heaven I don’t think God is going to judge me for my sin. My sin has already been forgiven. But I do believe that God is going to ask to see my scars – to see all the areas of my life that I fought for what I believed in. God might want to see what it was that I believed in enough to struggle for.
And maybe, just maybe, God will ask to see the healing band of flowers around my ankle!
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