My recent state hopping was due to a conference on leadership that I was attending in Vancouver, WA. And one of the most remarkable moments of the two days was when we discussed the power of the pen.
We are living, breathing narratives.
We carry the story of our parents, our professors, our mentors, our friends, their failures and successes and their vision for us in our veins.
Imagine that every word spoken to us was written into our flesh; an invisible tattoo.
What would yours say?
There are parts of my story I haven’t thought about for years. And when I reach for something new, when I stretch toward what I think God is calling me into, sometimes it’s like a sleeve falls back and reveals part of a tattoo I had forgotten about. The words stand out painful, dark and threatening against the vulnerable skin of my heart.
“Arrogant child; willful woman; unteachable student.”
I twist my neck around my memories to keep reading the hard words.
“Lost, prideful, could have been great if she had taken our advice.”
I feel the sting of the words as freshly as I did 13 years ago when they were being tattooed onto my soul.
“You could have been so much more than who you are.”
And suddenly the years I have journeyed since that moment are reduced to a wasted exercise in trying to escape the inevitable.
I believe what it says on my skin and not what it says on His.
“Behold, I have carved you on the palms of My hands.”
Isaiah 49:16.
Carved on the palms of His hands.
Rough, hard working hands of a Carpenter. Tender caring hands of a Shepherd. Loving, hugging hands of a Father. Friendly, familiar hands of a Son and a Brother.
My name is tattooed across all of them.
“Lisa-Jo is loved because I love her. Lisa-Jo is worthy. Lisa-Jo is called. Lisa-Jo is not lost because I am her Shepherd and I am never lost.”
For a girl who’s never had a real ink tattoo, today I am fascinated by them. Join me, won’t you? Stop staring at your own markings of failure and insecurity – look up and over at His hands and share what you see there.
What do you read about yourself, carved into His palms?
He is never lost. With Him nothing is missing; nothing is broken.
You are beautiful.
So, lift up your eyes and read what He has inked on His very own hands about you.
What does it say?
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The tatoos I engraved over the course of years were:
worthless, ugly, unloveable
My Lord keeps replacing those with tatoos of His own:
Redeemed, adored, beloved
Beautiful. Truthful. Courageous.
Thank-you for sharing.
you are enough because I AM enough.
There are so many verses I love in Isaiah. This is one of them, and your post makes these words even more beautiful. At the end of the day, it is almost impossible not to dwell on all the things I did wrong that day. That’s why I liked this so much – “Stop staring at your own markings of failure and insecurity – look up and over at His hands and share what you see there.” LOVE your posts!
This lesson was a long, slow time coming for me. Perhaps all the more powerful for me for that very reason.
heh… i guess mine has been “misfit” for many years. sometimes i joke about it, sometimes it brings pain. yet, at the same time, He keeps reminding me that i wasn’t *meant* to fit into this world because He crafted me for another one, a much better one. He called me to “be in the world, but not of the world”… so, in a way, my tattoo may be painful sometimes, but i try to view it as a reminder that soon i’ll be HOME.
thanks for reminder tho.
Mine has read something similar: “in between” for a decade.
This post is powerful… and the road of really living what HE says about me instead of all of “them”… has been a challenging one. It’s one of the reasons I have “nothing missing nothing broken” tattooed on the inside of my right wrist in Hebrew. True that.
Yes, Shalom.
I was thinking of Alece’s tattoo.
Did you get them together?
He is written into my flesh. I am written into His. I needed to think about this. Thank you for these words.
Great site and thanx for the post
Hello.
God sent me your post today through DaySprings. WHAT A BLESSING! At the risk of sounding like, “Oh yea. You think that scar is something…look at this.” God has been teaching me that “No” is not “Never”, and it’s all about Him, not Me. As the girls here say, “Oh well, sea shell”. :<)
Sam