Tattooed

If you haven't heard the rumors, well, they're true anyway.... I got a tattoo. While the decision to actually go get it two nights ago was very spur-of-the-moment, I've been sitting on the idea for about 4 years now.

Almost 4 years ago, I spent a week at Younglife's Crooked Creek Ranch. I went because I wanted to spend the week away from my house, away from my life, riding zip lines and ropes courses and laying by the pool in Colorado. I had no idea what I was in for.

I did get to spend the week doing all the kinds of crazy things that I love. But for some reason, I couldn't sleep at night. As my Younglife leader likes to put it, I got quieter and surlier as the week went on, to the point that she was a little bit afraid of me. That's because I was FREAKING OUT.

Every day at club, I heard a little bit more about Jesus. The more I heard, the more I liked the sound of him. And the more I came face to face with everything in my life that I had tried to run away from. I had questions, doubts, and fears about Jesus. I was angry and hurt and confused, and at a loss for what to do.

And then, the second to last night of camp... We were ten thousand feet up a mountain, in the middle of Colorado. They turned all the lights out in camp, in the middle of the night, and no one was speaking. I was laying in the grass, nowhere near another soul, staring up at a canopy of inky black, velvet blue, and more stars than you can possibly imagine. The only sound was Ryan Long's voice singing out over the camp, singing this old hymn:

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy. Weak and wounded by the fall.
Jesus ready, stands to save you, full of pity, love and power.

I will rise and go to Jesus, he will embrace me in his arms.
For in the arms of my dear Savior, there are ten thousand charms.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden, lost and ruined by the fall.
If you tarry til you're better, you will never come at all.

I will rise and go to Jesus, he will embrace me in his arms.
For in the arms of my dear Savior, there are ten thousand charms.

It's the moment that I became a Christian. That moment, even though I had no idea that I had changed. It wasn't until the next morning, when I was talking to Ryan and my Younglife leader, that I realized that I was different. (that's what the date means. I sketched the tattoo the day after I got back from camp.) Since that moment, I have changed so much. I have learned, I have failed, I have fallen, I have rebelled, I have loved, and I have been changed. I am not the same.

And sometimes, I get so caught up in the rules and expectations that I forget why I love Jesus in the first place. Every time I see my tattoo, it moves my heart. Because it takes me back to that moment under the Colorado stars, when my questions and fears melted away and I found myself walking into the arms of a Savior who loves me despite me. For in the arms of my dear Savior, there are ten thousand charms.

I love it when people ask me about my tattoo. I love telling the story. Not only because it brings me back to that moment, but because I realized that it is an opportunity to share about what God has done in my life. It's an awesome conversation starter, and I didn't realize that it would be. I did it for me, as an act of worship, and God is showing me how to use it to teach others about him. Wow.