The Re-Imagined Tattoo

 I was about sixteen when darkness began to feel strangely familiar to me.

I was struggling in ways I didn’t know how to name. I was suicidal. I cut myself. I drank. And before meth addiction would eventually become part of my story, I found myself fascinated by spiritual things I did not understand.

At the time, I called it Wicca. Looking back through the lens of my Christian faith, I understand that season very differently. I was reaching into spiritual darkness while having no idea just how desperately my soul was searching for something transcendent.

I practiced calling the corners. I focused on the elements. I experimented with spells and different forms of divination. I was fascinated by the idea that there might be something beyond what I could see—another realm, another reality, something spiritual just beyond the veil of the physical world.

The irony is that I was right about that part.

There was more.

I was simply looking for it in the wrong place.

Then one night, I had a dream.

In the dream, I saw a specific symbol—a symbol I believed represented the spiritual world I had become involved in. It was so vivid and so compelling that when I woke up the next morning, I drove to a tattoo shop and had the symbol permanently inked onto my body.

I thought I understood what I was doing.

I thought I knew what the symbol meant.

But sometime later, I was at my parents’ house and showed my mom my newest tattoo. She looked at it and then disappeared into my old bedroom.

When she returned, she was carrying a Bible.

It was the Bible my grandmother had given me when I was about seven years old.

And there, printed on its spine, was my tattoo.

The symbol I had dreamed about—the symbol I had permanently placed on my body believing it represented my commitment to darkness—was staring back at me from the spine of a Bible I had owned since childhood.

It was a symbol of the Holy Trinity.

Father.

Son.

Holy Spirit.

Even now, there is something about that moment that leaves me in awe.

Long before I understood grace, grace was there.

Long before I was searching for God, I believe God was
searching for me.

Long before I knew enough theology to call it prevenient grace

, I was experiencing the mystery of it: the grace of God that goes before us. The God who moves toward us before we ever think to move toward Him.

I had gone searching for mystery in darkness, and somehow, mysteriously, God met me there and pointed me back toward Himself.

That tattoo is still on my body.

It is small. It is faded. And, aesthetically speaking, it is terrible.

I have almost had it redone half a dozen times.

But I can never quite bring myself to change it.

Because that imperfect little mark has become sacred to me—not because there is anything magical about the ink itself, but because of what it reminds me of.

It reminds me that there was a time when I thought I was marking myself for darkness while God was already writing a different story.

It reminds me that I did not have to understand Him for Him to love me.

I did not have to recognize Him for Him to be near.

I did not have to clean myself up, find the right theology, say the right prayer, or somehow stumble my way back into the light before He would come looking for me.

Romans 5:8 says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

While we were still.

There is mystery in those words.

God did not wait for me on the other side of my darkness.

He entered it.

And when I think about that sixteen-year-old girl now—the one searching for something spiritual, something powerful, something beyond herself—I sometimes wish I could sit beside her and tell her:

You are right. There is more.

There is a spiritual reality greater than what your eyes can see.

There is mystery.

There is wonder.

There is a God who cannot be contained by the boundaries of your understanding.

But you do not have to summon Him.

You do not have to manipulate the spiritual world to find Him.

You do not have to know the right words.

He is already near.

And maybe that is one of the greatest mysteries of grace: sometimes we spend our lives believing we are searching for God, only to look back and realize that God had been pursuing us all along.

Even in the wilderness.

Even in addiction.

Even in rebellion.

Even when darkness seemed to surround me on every side, there was a God who had already stepped into darkness Himself.

He hung on a cross beneath a darkened sky.

He entered suffering.

He entered death.

And He did it for sinners who had not yet learned to look for Him.

For me.

And for you.

That little tattoo still reminds me of something I couldn't understand at sixteen:

I thought I had chosen a symbol.

But every time I look at it now, I remember the God who had already chosen to come looking for me.

Awe and Wonder: the book

 This  most recent book is one that I began on over a decade ago when I began to notice things happening around me that had no real explanation, or atleast not in the human realm. Once it happened once, I began to notice it more and more. Soon, I was writing these chapters as blog entries in what I hoped would publish someday. These are the stories. 

One thing that I believe is that so often, we try to put God in a box. I know that I grew up hearing the stories about how God parted the red sea for Moses, or made walls fall around Jericho; but many times, I admit that the "Big G God" operated in such a place of awe and wonder that when given stories about the not-so ordinary everyday occurrences that might happen on the playground or even at an intersection of a light, God's brilliance could be seen in the daily instances of our lives. 

As I share these stories, my hope is that you will begin to notice how God is a great communicator, and not just when he parts the seas or makes bushes burn; but also when he allows us to see him in the ordinary days of our lives. I pray that this book takes God out of that box and places him in the grand cosmos of his creation where the depth of his existence can't be contained. 

1 Corinthians 4:24

A person should think of us in this way; as servants of Christ and managers of the mysteries of God. In this regard, it is required that managers be found faithful. 

Who I once was.

Twenty years ago, I was placed in the back of a cop car for trying to smuggle contraband out of the store. It was the lowest place I have ever been in my addiction and while I wish I could say that that day was a turning point, it wasn’t.

Today I was leaving the store and remembered that day like it was yesterday. All of the regrets came flooding back and satan tried to convince me that I am just as broken now as I was then.

He reminded me of all the times that I had let my parents down. Let my church down. Let my community down. But mostly, let myself down. Let’s face it, when all we think we are is just a pile of wasted breath, satan has us right where he wants us.

Defeated. Broken. A lost cause.

As I was loading up my stuff, I looked across the parking lot where a woman I had recently prayed for came running up. When I first met her, she walked with a limp and could only reach out with one hand, the result of a stroke that nearly took her life. Yet today, she was moving with more fervor than anyone I had ever see.

She had a woman with a small child with her and asked me to pray for them just as I had prayed many times for her. They too, were facing a trial in their lives. There in the parking lot, three desperate people who might have told you that their lives were hopeless at one time, had an encounter with the spirit of the Living God.

The same living God that told the lame to walk. To see the captives free from their chains of addiction. To comfort a mourning mother whose child was sick and needed a touch from Jesus.

He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He is still restoring lives. He is still defeating the weak one. And he is still calling those of us who may have discounted the use of our broken lives to tell of a God who is able to rewrite the history of a broken world, because that’s what he does.

What satan meant for evil twenty years ago, God turned around. And now instead of telling this story through the eyes of an addict, I gladly tell it from the heart of a lost child who was relentlessly pursued by God and given a new life to lift high the name of Jesus.

His is the kingdom. His is the power. His is the glory. Forever, amen.

Joanna

One year ago today, I lost a client. Her name was Joanna and man, was she something.

So many in the homeless community knew Joanna because she had a way of pulling people in need to the places where they could find resources. She was a regular fixture of the Ministry Center and could be found regularly giving out snack cakes or water bottle additives from the lobby. What she had, everyone had. That's just how she was. The day she died, something happened to me and it's taken this year to discover that healing from her death has been harder than I ever would have imagined. Truth be told, I didn't recognize that the trauma of the situation had caused a change in my heart. It would take a simple Sunday school lesson for me to see it clearly like I do now. Let me explain.

Joanna was used to asking me for rides. It happened atleast once a week where she'd hop in the car with me and I'd take her somewhere to get a meal or back to her hotel. The last day I saw her alive, I couldn't give her a ride. I had to tell her no. Joanna walked out of my office and within fifteen minutes, had been hit and killed by a tractor trailer. My mind immediately went to, "If I would have given her a ride, she would be alive." No one could tell me differently.

The change didn't happen overnight, but looking back, I can see how it touched every part of my life. At first, I thought I didn't deserve the right to claim to love and care for people because I couldn't care for her. Masked under the label of being "Covid safe," I withdrew and that started something dark and scary in my life. Before long, I was believing the lies that would tell me that my husband deserved better. My kids deserved better. I wasn't worth the job that I had, and didn't even deserve to carry the banner of Christ.

I thought I wasn't worthy of the love of God, and surely he loved the world enough to send His Son, but that couldn't be for me. I wasn't worth it.

It wasn't until I confessed to my inner circle how I was feeling, did healing begin. They began to send me scripture and songs that reminded me of the Father's love for me. Healing began and now I can't imagine not having my small group of friends, my family (work and home) and my church to lift my eyes back to the Father who was holding my hand through all of my pain and telling me that I was worth the saving that God so freely gives.

I guess I am saying all of that to say this. A year ago if you would have asked me if I had a firm foundation of faith, I would have told you yes, I did! I have experienced Christ in some of the darkest places of my life: in addiction, in the loss of a pregnancy, of my marriage; my God has proven himself faithful more times than I could ever count! But I truly know that there is an enemy of our souls and friends, he doesn't always come like a whirlwind, destroying everything in a big way. Sometimes he sneaks in when we don't see and plants something so small, by the time we are aware, it's huge. That's why we have to put on the armor of God and stay in his Word, because it is Truth. It is alive, and I'm thankful for its words for jumping off the page during Sunday school.

I'll end with this. One of my favorite stories from the Bible comes from Luke 8 and it's about the bleeding woman who was desperate to get healing from Jesus as he walked through a crowd of people. She's so desperate to encounter Him and I can look back and remember times in my life that I was this woman, craving for God to bring healing to my pain. Jesus's words, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace," have spoken to me before, but when I imagine Jesus's voice, it has always been soft, soothing. This particular Sunday, I heard those very words said back to me in a way that I believe God knew he had to express to me in a way that would get my attention. He said, "Daughter! Don't you hear me? I've given you healing before. I have delivered you before. Now go, and get the peace that only I can give you now." The soothing voice that I had once heard was now being boldly said to me in a way that would shake me from the darkness and bring me back into His light. I'm so thankful that the Word of God is alive, for that is the only place that I could have possibly found healing.

Dear God,

My heart goes out to the one tonight that is hearing something that is not from you and is believing it. God, I know you know their pain. Would you pour your light into the darkness that surrounds them? Would you remind them that they are precious to you? That you paid a price for them, too? That they are loved and a treasured gift. Thank you for saving me out of the darkness and for making a garden out of a grave for me. And thank you to the person reading this that gets to see their garden, too.

Amen

87Sue E Wilson, Lynetta Baker Williams and 85 others

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Church camp!!

Sunday night, 1:10am. T-minus seven hours and fifty minutes until I get to leave for church camp. AHHHH!!! Church camp is the best! I look forward to seeing all of the kids, watching their little minds learn about this awesome Jesus that loves them so much, and eating smores around a campfire while I eat foods that no sensible adult should ever touch. And the snack shack. Oh, thank you, Jesus, the snack shack. 

So why am I sitting in the ER at this time? As fate might have it, I am looking at a big ugly diagnosis of strep with the following companion of a shot in my rump to fix the problem. Okay, no big deal. Church camp is tomorrow and this lady says I am good to go, so off I go! I get home in record time and fall asleep with a smile on my face knowing that tomorrow will bring so much goodness. 

There's only one thing. Just because that ER nurse said I was good to go doesn't mean that my body agreed. About two hours into the morning on the first day, my head starts to pound. My throat is on fire. My fever spikes every 3 hours and 45 minutes so I am eating Ibuprofen like they are M&M's. This first day will be the hardest and the rest of the week will be great! Or not. I carry on this way for the next few days, having times where I feel much better and am convinced I am on the uphill climb, only to feel my teeth chatter when the fever spikes once again. I enjoy the moments I can and rejoice through sick eyes at the fun taking place all around me. Good memories are happening, but I spend much of my time thinking about what it would be like to lay down in my very own bed. 

Today arrived and I am sad that it is time to go home. I think about the new little kids I got to meet and promise myself that I will remember their names for next year. I think about what kinds of backgrounds that some of them have and wonder what kinds of homes they will be returning to. I know most of the kids that came with my church, but there were over 300 hundred kids each with his or her own story. Did I aid in pouring into them during their time spent at camp, or did they see the sick,  crabby side of me? God, I ask your grace to go before me if I spoke from a place that was more human and less of you. I pray that I didn't, in all of my sickly crabbiness, that their main take away from their church camp experience is you.

We pull into the church parking lot to return kids to parents so that they can tell them all about the fun time they had at camp. I load up two people's worth of luggage into my car (mine and Paxton's) and finally am on the road to my own home, my own bed, my own medicine, my refuge. I unload everything and just as I can see the end in sight, hear the voice of my teenage son say, " Mama, I am really hot." Mama instincts kick in and before I know it I am touching foreheads in search of a fever, only to discover that the heat he is feeling is due to an issue with the central AC. What I thought was going to be bedtime now turned into an impromptu trip to the pool so that everyone could jump inside and not overheat. We make it back home just in time to hear the words "You have to leave it off for a few hours while it thaws." Yeah, so great. Who needed that bed? Who needed those meds? Who needed to sleep for about 16 hours to get back into a normal functioning mode? Apparently, it would have to wait. 

My gosh, what a pity party. I think about the kids from camp and what going home might feel like for some of them. For the little girls whose home is not a safe haven like mine is. For the little boy who doesn't know who will celebrate his decision to follow Jesus for the first time at home the way he was celebrated at camp. Or for the staff member who pours herself out year after year for the kids that pass through the craft hall yet will return to an empty home this time due to the recent loss of her husband.  I know Jesus came back to save us all, but I pray that those are the ones that he is especially close to as they go home. 

With or without their sickness. With or without their air-conditioned home. With or without their exhaustion. I pray that Jesus was waiting for them all at the front door the minute they walked inside. Would you pray for them? 

who I once was

She cringed when she looked down and saw them. The scars had been with her for over twenty years, thus making their appearance less noticeable to her on most days. But today, she found herself staring at them intently. They represented the most painful time in her life--a time where she had once questioned if she would ever make it through. Yet, she somehow had, and had the scars to prove it. 

She noticed other people's scars, as well. Not everyone wore them the same, and their uniqueness carried a burden that only the individual who adorned them would understand for they were the only one who had fought the battle. Maybe they had support, maybe not, but ultimately the trial that they faced at the time, they faced alone. Or so it usually felt.

Every scar-bearer had a unique story to tell, but her's wasn't one of courage, yet of fear. Fear of regret. Fear of rejection. Fear of life, or what it would hold. Fear of no longer feeling, or living in a world where she couldn't feel anything at all. And now she found herself thinking of the scars of some of her brave friends who had battle scars from double mastectomies, from colostomy bags, from ungrown hair patches that had never fully come back, and she was angered because of her own.

Each stripe on her wrist brought her back to the days where she felt more alone than she ever had. A time where she so desperately wanted some kind of control over her own life yet couldn't find it. A time where she questioned if anyone would notice if she simply wasn't around the next day.

And now, she bore the scars to remind her.

Then she smiled. She remembered. There was someone who bore scars, too. Only His scars were to give life to all who would accept them in place of their own. To the one with scars on their chest from a battle with breast cancer; to the little girl with a beautiful bald scalp from her chemo treatments; to the ones whose scars were often invisible. His would cover them all.

No matter if you are like me and look down and find yourself regretting the battle scars of your life, this is a reminder to look up. There you will find the perfect scars of the One who took yours upon Himself and breathed life into them.

"He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His sins, you are healed." 1 Peter 2:24

Peace and love to you all, in the name of Yeshua.

Piper and Lincoln.

First let me begin this post with a heartfelt thanks for the many people that I know are keeping up with my niece's story and continue to pray for her and the family as she battles something that no parent should ever watch their kids go through. I sometimes wonder if they realize just how real their strength and faith through all this is to those of us looking in; how when we ask ourselves what we would do if put in the same position. I feel like even on the days where they don't even know how to express what this feels like, their underlying faith is testimony enough. It truly is nudging people to look inside and ask themselves,  "What does my faith look like?"

This weekend I was able to spend some time with Piper and Lincoln. We had a pretty good schedule going there for a few weeks of Friday visits, but due to life circumstances, I hadn't been to see her in a couple of weeks. I was expecting to see a new port so I was trying to prepare for what that might look like, understanding that she may have a couple of tubes sticking out of her neck. I must admit I was grateful to see that she hadn't had that procedure yet and pondered the thought of how many times her mom and dad had mentally prepared themselves for one thing or another in the last eight months. I asked myself if undergoing yet another surgery would ever be something that would be considered mundane in the grand scheme of all that her 45 pound body had already endured. I imagined that as a parent, accepting this as a new norm would never be really normal.  I sent up a prayer  asking God that he would never allow me to get complacent in thanking Him for each day that my own kids were healthy, as well as quoted the scripture that I have clung for Danny and Arellia throughout this ordeal, which says, "Because they trust in the Lord, they will renew their strength. Piper will soar on wings like eagles. She will run and not grow weary. She will walk and not be faint." (Isaiah 40:31) I believe this scripture with all of my heart and someday when Piper gets older, I am going to have someone monogram this scripture onto something for her to wear during her first marathon. And maybe her  wedding dress somehow, too. They can do that, right?

Back to my visit this weekend. Piper wantedt to watch Beauty and the Beast so we cuddled up on the couch and watched for a while until the kids got restless and we built a tent and chased each other through the tent entrance and exit. Lincoln confused the word tent with parachute and he kept trying to jump on top of it like it was going to bounce him into the sky or something, but were having fun and that is all that mattered. Once the kids showed signs of tiring, we cuddled back down just in time to see the end of the movie where that big jerk Gaston shoots the beast with an arrow while Belle looks on. Apparently during some part of this, and even though the kids have seen the movie before and I have seen it enough to perform it live on Broadway if ever I needed to, my face showed some signs of worry. I didn't realize it until I looked over at Piper whose face was crinkled up with concern. I asked her if she was ok and she said, "Aunt Sarah, just watch. He's going to be okay," confessing a response evoked because she saw the expression of fear laying across her Aunt's face. I immediately smiled at her and said, "I know he is going to be ok. I must have just forgotten for a second." Truth is, the emotion of the moment had gotten the best of me and there was no hiding it apparently. As soon as I smiled, the kid's faces lit up and we all returned to what we knew was the truth: that the beast would be transformed into a handsome young ruler who would marry Belle. And live happily ever after. I am blessed to have captured the moment with the kids when the beast became a man and you see that happily ever after is actually a reality for the story of Belle and her beast.


Several moments stand out in my mind from the past several months of Piper's journey, but the one that I can't tell without getting excited was when my brother stood before our church during a very-specific night designed to cry out to God on behalf of Piper. That night, my baby brother stood before every member present  and told them that when they prayed for his daughter's life, not to whimper in silence or beg for her life to be spared, but to boldly come to our Heavenly Father and thank Him for the life he was going to restore in Piper by the name of Jesus. The Healer. The Restorer. The Redeemer. The Shepherd. The Almighty. The One whose suffering can take the place of our own. Somehow.

How often do we ourselves forget what we know is going to happen in the end? Have we lived through hard times before, only to temporarily forget the ending like I did when the beast lives on? And when we do, how much do we affect those who may be going through their first storm yet see the fear on our faces instead of the goofy grins that delight in knowing that God already knows because He is already there? He gives us a reason to smile, even if it is for indescribable peace. We know that the world will give us trouble, but we stand on the cornerstone that is Jesus whom is able to see us through. What a reason to rejoice!

So tonight I am going to be a little bold myself. I realize that there are those of you who are keeping up with Piper's story and how Danny and Arellia's faith is strengthening your own. I am so thankful for that. But my question to you, beloved reader, is what do you believe? Maybe you are on the "Praying for Piper" FB page and find yourself questioning how people can handle something like this. Or maybe you casually comment "praying" every time Arellia posts something new. Maybe you really do, or maybe you just say that because it is politically correct to reply in that manner. I get it, believe me, I do. When I first felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit in my life, I searched for an outward expression to declare a change that I had experienced even though I may not have truly known what it meant. But there is real power there. My pastor reminded me today that the same power that rose Jesus from the grave lives in us. In you. No longer are the days where you have to wonder where to cast your anchor in the storm, because he is on the boat waiting for you to glance back and see him
. And when you do, and you release all of the luggage that you are carrying, the hurts that you have experienced, the disappointments in life, the times that you felt alone, please know that someone who suffered way worse is waiting for you to take a deep breath and whisper his name.

You may cry a little, or smile a lot, but whatever your response is to THE response that you make today is, it will be beautiful.

Please let someone know. I would love for it to be me. But mostly, I am glad it is HIM.