Tattoos, Trust, and Testimonies

When I was about ten years old, I remember my church having a “testimony” night. They’d had a bunch before, it wasn’t a new thing. But honestly, I was getting tired of them. Yes, at ten, already, I remember being annoyed. See, “testimony” was pretty much a shame word to me because I was lame and didn’t have one. Ever. The night would progress with a bunch of impressive kids - who were way more spiritual and amazing than me - telling their stories about witnessing and healing and God’s protection over their lives. They would get tons of affirmation over it too - popularity even. But me? I was plain. I loved God, I wanted to be impressive, but I just never had anything to say like that. For years and years the same kids would go up, go up, go up; they’d speak into the microphone about how they had changed their friends’ lives. Me, I was just trying to not lie to my Mom about stealing donuts from the pantry.

But I remember this one particular night more than the others because we had a guest speaker. She was young, and in a wheelchair. She couldn’t move her legs, ever again. She wasn’t physically beautiful, by the world’s standards. She wasn’t rich, she wasn’t famous. She wasn't doing impressive sports with just her arms because her legs didn’t work. She didn’t have a book coming out, or any story about how God had fixed her, miraculously.

Her testimony? Simply, she knew how much God loved her. That He loved her A LOT. And that she hadn’t known that, until she had been confined to a wheelchair. The End.

Um, what???? My ten-year-old brain didn’t get it.

It was so different than all the other testimonies, because it wasn’t impressive. I always complained, “well if God would just part seas for me, I’d be all on fire for Him, too. Who wouldn’t?!” But this girl... she had nothing. She had tragedy. I don’t even remember her name or why she was in a wheelchair. Yet, her affect on my little heart was stronger than any other testimony in my whole entire church experience growing up (which was like EVERY DAY). I can still see her sweet face on the monitors... she just had genuine peace and security, knowing she was LOVED. That’s it. She knew that SHE KNEW: God was always there, and would never, ever, leave her.

I decided she had no sense. NONE. But I did the whole “faith prayer” thing that night because of her. I didn't know God’s love the way she did, and if I prayed “right”, I figured I’d either end up in a wheelchair - happy like she was, or God was fake and none of it mattered anyway. So hey, lets go.

******

Fast forward 20 years or so, and here’s me, hitting rock bottom. Five months out from Oliver’s death, days out from my husbands’s confessions, my own trust in God’s love just, wasn’t. Gosh, I’d been a “Christian” so long. I already KNEW how to trust, okay? I’d trusted for a husband and refused to date for five years waiting for him (gag). I’d trusted for finances, jobs, and protection. I’d trusted in court cases and financial ruin. I’d trusted in parenting, which - okay - is the HARDEST thing for me and my anxious ways. Resting in God’s embrace? Yeah, I DID THAT. Expert - right here you guys.

Haaaa.

Humility had found me. Trust God now?! Funny. Why would I DO that? He obviously didn’t care; the last five months had proven that serving God hadn’t saved me from life-ruin. What a fool I’d been. I’d spent all my extra time serving - leading groups, helping women... sometimes at 3AM... and where had it gotten me? Everyone thought our marriage was pretty much perfect, and that we had “arrived” at being able to just **help others**. We couldn’t reach out in the shock of it all - because there was no one we could trust to tell (my husbands tried once, to a fellow church leader. It wasn’t long before everyone knew, so that was the end of that). But I wasn’t even there yet like my husband was - telling other people wasn’t my thing, because it wasn't my choice what had happened. I was still back here confused: wait just a minute, what is going on, WHERE is God??

He had put my husband and I together, I had no doubt at the time. That made me even more confused: our marriage at this point was hardly a shining example of purity and excellence. We had failed, despite our perception of thinking God would keep us safe. Oliver died, there was too many lies... So why would he put us together if we were just going to fail? Why would He let this happen when we were all-out TRYING?

(I can’t even tell you how long, and how hard, I’ve had to work to understand why God lets horrible, heart-suffering exist in this world. And yes, I realize I don't even know what that means in my little American bubble. With my child who died before I had millions of memories to drag me under. But still, things you can’t control, things you didn’t even know were about to happen, HAPPEN. I’m not that blind-faith person, you guys. I don’t just say, “well, God will work it out for His good”... and march on like a broken church robot. There’s no life there. You can say that when your co-worker gets the promotion you wanted, but if you’re saying that to someone whose marriage is failing, to someone who’s just lost a loved one... check it. Life is more than that.)

In that moment, I suddenly thought of that girl, and her wheelchair again. That little girl still had something my big mature thirty-something self didn’t. She had tragedy, and that’s what made her know. Whatever. I can trust for finances. I can trust for health. I can trust for God to make my enemies pay (I’m good at that one). But I CAN, NOT, trust God to keep tragedy away apparently, and any “father” who loved me, would. Right? But she had tragedy, and it led her closer. Then I thought of all the five million ways He’d shown up in my life until that point. Did God love me? The confusion, nauseating as it was, couldn’t overcome the super small tiny feeling, that wanted me to just stop trying to figure it out, and...

TRUST HIM.

But you guys, I’m not a trust -er. I’m a kick-you-to-the-curb -er.

Yeah. God knew that about me too.

*************

It’s been two years since then. And I have a blog so I can tell you all the reasons why trusting God, even after your life is totalled and you know He *could have* prevented it, is the most beautiful story you'll ever know. It’s not all mostly fun, though - not gonna lie. I've been the worst story ever, at times. But OH MY GOSH. Life is ALIVE-LIKE in a way I can't even say without a whole book of a post, or two. I really believed I was sold out to God the first round - that I’d do anything to make people know how NOT LIKE THAT MEAN GUY IN THE SKY He is. This was my calling. It still is. But when life failed, I was going to walk away from all that for one simple reason:

I didn’t really trust God. I gave him my allegiance, and I trusted in the little things. But I was still in charge of my life because I like being in charge. When I’m in charge, I’m in control. When I’m in control....

...no one can hurt me.

Well now. That bubble was burst. I was blindsided, more than ever before.

So I fired me.

And now it's God’s turn. Forever. And, the only acceptable to way to celebrate it being God's turn, forever and ever, is to get a tattoo so you can never change your mind. Even when you're not a tattoo person because people say only renegades do those and they give a bad impression.

April 16th, the day I started this blog and Oliver’s would-have-been birthday - I launched this site with my first post, put it on Facebook, turned off my phone, and headed to the tattoo studio. First, I got Oliver’s name tattooed around my forearm. Then, around my upper arm (you know, around my big super-fitness-like bicep I have *crying sounds*) I got four bands: a dotted one for the baby I gave up for adoption when I was seventeen (post on that later), and three solid bands beneath it for my three living children. Above the bands, the words,

“...where my trust is without borders...”

If there’s only one thing I’ve learned in 34 years, it’s that trusting God is so much more fulfilling and meaningful than just a transaction for safety, security, and prosperity in this life. The idea I used to have of God’s interaction in regards to my happiness and my family's, was such a small rear-view mirror-type perception. It’s so much bigger and more present than that. I felt like this situation was impossible, life was over, things were done. Oliver was gone, you can’t undo that. God didn’t care...

Oh gosh. He cared so much, you guys. I can't even take it all in.

When I bend at the elbow, the Oliver text on my forearm fits perfectly into the space between Max’s band and Ellie’s. Cause that’s where he belongs. I had my tattoo artist leave a space there, because Oliver’s not here like he should be. And when you look at my tattoo as a whole, the natural spacing between the bands on my upper arm and Oliver’s on my forearm...they seem extremely far away. Look, I know I'm on sacred ground when I say, God can heal despair. Because I hated when people said it to me: YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW. But He can take things that are impossibly permanent and painful, separate, and fit them all into a life that has joy again. CAN.

#Trust