Tattoo Time

So the last few months I’ve been back to the tattoo shop a few times.  Four times since mid December to be exact.  It had been an eight year hiatus since I’d last sat in that chair.

My husband and I initially went in together to each get a tattoo in memory of our little Faith MaryJo, the daughter we lost last March. I’d spent hours online trying to figure out just want I wanted (I’m one of those “planners” you know, there's no "fly by the seat of my pants" with me!).  I had settled on something small on my foot.  A dragonfly with a shadow, little baby feet incorporated into the shadow, and “Walk By Faith” in script under it. Small, neat, easy, meaningful. I’d also come across a great graphic I’d fallen in love with that I could put in the unfinished middle area of my back (Ummmm yes, there is quite a bit of other ink already on my back!), and I thought it would be neat to incorporate the names of my kids amid the roses and vines. I filed that away for later. But everything was crystal clear how it was going to look in my prepared and creative mind.

Tattoo shops run at a very different pace than I do. Just a forewarning for those of you still to make your first appointment at one... No matter how prepared you are in what you want, it always takes forever before you’re actually designed, in the chair, stencil on, and actually getting inked.

The hubby went first and got a set of footprints and angel wings on his arm.  It came out amazing! We cried together as we looked at it.

Hours later, it was finally my turn.  And somehow – I ended up getting the start of roses, vines, and names on my back. (Seriously, how did that even happen?)  And then he only did phase one ~ the outline.  AND it wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned. It was all the elements I’d requested – roses, vines, my children’s name in a legible script, and he'd shown it to me before getting started, and it really was beautiful... But I went home feeling… off.  I’ve had it before that I’d gone home with new ink and it took time for it to heal and for my mind to come to love it.

I took care of the healing process, but I wouldn't even look the actual art itself.  I went back a few weeks later and had the shading done.  I got home, the shading was beautiful, but I still spent very little time looking at it. I went back a third and fourth time, each time getting a few more areas done and filled in and finished, each time wondering if I was just making it worse by trying to make it better... Each time I left in a swirl of uncertainty and over and over uttered… “Why didn’t I just get the stupid dragonfly on my foot instead of working more on my back?!”  I also found myself falling in love with it all more and more each time.

As I’ve mulled over this whole process, trying to avoid the quiet whisper of disappointment,  I can’t help but smile.  My whole back tattoo is such a parallel to many areas of my life. Big, messy, but ultimately beautiful. How often in my life do I have this perfect idea in my head.  This ultimate dream or hope, something I plan and think I will control.  Something big, something grand, something beautiful, something special. (You know…like those dreams of pregnancies and healthy babies...)  After time, while it maybe isn’t something horrible, it surely isn’t what I envisioned. It takes time for my mind to wrap itself around a new reality, a new norm, which I did not get to choose and did not have control over.  I try avoid it as long as I can, but in time I finally come to terms and just embrace the ugly (which rarely is as ugly as I initially perceive it to be).  Time continues and soon I hardly remember what the original plan or hope had even been.  As more time passes, sometimes I even come to love that once unhappy messed up wrinkle-in-time. All the individual moments and areas, somehow begin to just blend together into one collective story, one large canvas of the art and beauty of my journey.

I can have a thought, design, vision of what I think I want.  But ultimately the artist is the one who creates and has the control.  It’s no different than my life with my Creator.  He allows me to think, plan, hope, and design my life, but ultimately – He’s the master artist who chooses the lines, strokes, shading, and intricacies woven within my journey.  There is pain in the process, there needs to be time for healing, there needs to be openness to accept a new reality.  There are times I look in the mirror and I don’t like the life I see and feel that twinge of disappointment laced in fear.  There’s no turning back, there’s no erasing what’s already been done. The reality is left looking slightly similar to what I originally envisioned, yet completely different.  In the end, I need to trust the artist, the Creator… I need to live in the comfort of knowing it’s going to somehow come out breathtaking in the end, even when it initially isn’t quite so glamorous, evident, or easy in the process.

The unique story of my life is ultimately not mine to control. Life will leave its mark, its permanent scars upon my body, covered and worn... but intricately woven with the beautiful shades of God's grace and beauty.

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