Yesterday I got a tattoo. My first one. It’s turquoisey aqua and it’s henna, two of my very very favorite things in all the world.
Here’s the story:
As you well know, Steve and I have spent almost a third of our marriage living in the Middle East due to Steve’s job in the Navy. Ten years ago, we were newly married and living in Bahrain. I was doing a couple of odd jobs on base, but basically I was not working. Steve, on the other hand, was working nonstop. So that meant I had time. Free, discretionary time. Like I’ve never had before or since.
What happened, in that spaciousness, is that I picked up a pen and I began writing. I wrote what felt like a world’s worth of words that had been bottled up inside me and came tumbling out. I have always written. Always. Since I was a very young child. And my adult self — my newlywed, twenty-something, totally unscheduled self — returned to writing. Returned to the soul voice.
During that season, I had a spiritual experience that was so very real and so very personal that if I ever doubt the existence of God or his love for me, I only have to think of that experience to be re-convinced. It was that profound. In a moment, God opened a door for me to be a working writer. He literally opened a door that I could have never, in a million years, opened for myself. And he invited me to walk through it. Absolutely nothing changed overnight. If anything, it has been the slowest of unfoldings. But, there in the Middle East, he gave me a chance. A chance I didn’t even know for sure I wanted, and yet there it was. I had to decide what I really wanted and then go for it.
Fast forward ten years, a job at my church, one book (Found Art), three babies (Luke, Lane, and Elle), and another tour in the Middle East and back, and here we are on the precipice of Breathing Room, a book that has been rattling around inside me for the last five of these ten years.
The tattoo commemorates this journey: God’s whisper in my ear all those years ago — in our flat overlooking the Persian Gulf — that sent my heart pounding and my fingers flying on the keyboard and started me down a path that I am still very much in awe of. The tattoo commemorates Breathing Room and the tenderness and struggle and overwhelm that birthed it. And this tattoo commemorates me, showing up with my big voice, even though I get scared. Even though.
The biggest obstacle for me with this tattoo was not the fear of the pain. It definitely wasn’t “comfortable,” but I have been through much worse pain, for sure. Essentially, everything related to childbirth.
My biggest obstacle to getting this tattoo was what people would think. And I am asking God to help me heal from this disease of needing to know that everyone approves of everything I’m doing and saying. Of not wanting to disappoint anyone. Of not wanting to displease in any way. So, maybe as much as anything, this tattoo commemorates my brave step toward letting go of what others may or may not be thinking and welcoming my own desires. This is actually deep, incisive work for me. Goes to the core. The struggle between wanting to own my voice and yet not wanting to make any waves with it. This is the work I will continue to do, and I hope that every time I look down at my wrist, I will be inspired anew to be very, very brave.
I hesitated to share all this because, ultimately, it feels like it’s just about me. But then I realized that so many of us are dying to connect with that soul voice inside us, struggling to set him or her free, desperate to celebrate — shamelessly — our unique and true self. We are longing for a touch from God’s transcendent hand that shifts everything, absolutely everything. And, we need someone to give us the permission to be very, very true to the work of God in our lives, letting go of how others believe we might need to be doing it.
OF COURSE, I don’t think you need to go get a tattoo to be your true self or to celebrate God’s work in your life. But, for me, this was a huge step in owning my own story, my own voice, and my own creativity.
The tattoo is designed to look like henna, inspired by the Middle East. I chose turquoisey aqua (a perfect blend of green and blue) because it makes me so very happy, a signature color. And I chose to put it on my right hand because that is my writing hand.
Here’s what is very unexpected: Every time I look at it (and, I realize, it isn’t even 24 hours old yet), I think WOW, IT’S SOOOOO BIG. And then I think WOW, IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL. I’m a little bit afraid of it, and I love it.
Letting go of being tame and quiet and fearful on the exhale, I breathe in life and voice and courage on the inhale.
HEAR ME ROAR.
