THESE SCARS
They Still Speak
The Silent Language of Living Wounded
Wherever you are today, your limitations, your walls, your scars are before God’s eyes.
September 19th, 2022
BRANDED
‘All rise! Presideth, the Honorable Judge Mackey. Court is now in session!’ The gavel hit hard, wood on wood, so hard it startled everyone in the courtroom. She gulped, an ocean of tears spilling over her lashes. How had they come to this? She lay her arms on the witness table before her then quickly flopped them over. There’d never be a day that she wouldn’t see his name staring back at her. How foolish of her to bank on forever. How foolish of her…and the memory clotted her vision. Seemed like yesterday…
She’d sat in the tattoo artist’s chair, teeth clenched and hands fisted at her sides. She had anticipated this moment for many years. Every time she accompanied a friend for their tattoo appointment, she imagined the same butterflies she felt now flying around in her own belly. Years past, she squealed in unison in the seat next to this or that friend, as excited for their tattoo experience as if it were that of her own, vicariously living it through another person, certain she would never sit in the very chair herself that she now occupied.
She has second-guessed her decision, wondering if it is rash, not well-thought through, pondering whether she would receive back her deposit if she chickened out, deciding probably not. After all, that’s what a deposit is all about, not to waste the artist’s time for squeamish chicks and unemboldened wimps. Especially since the artist took his time to design her request that she already accepted despite a few tweaks here and there. The final decision still was being tossed in the air: where to place the tattoo? and for that reason, the artist had stepped away while she consulted her imagination, picturing the simple but elaborate creation on multiple barren pieces of skin, while her stomach churned in her throat. Where would he mind the least? Where would he mind the most?
All her life, she waited to get a tattoo. She was the kid chasing herself to the silly fifty-cent vending machines, spending all her quarters on temporary cartoon tattoos. That’s the only thing she ever wanted to visit at the carnivals was the tattoo booths. It was the first time her dad broke her heart, when he told her ‘not over my dead body will you ever mark up the skin Jesus gave you with trashy artwork!’ The only thing he and her husband ever agreed upon was the stupid no-tattoos-allowed rule. She hung her head, really thinking she should step out of the chair and forego the $50 deposit, run and never look back.
‘Are you ready, Miss? Have you made up your mind?’ The artist stood at her side with his gun in one hand and the sketch in the other. She gulped, blinked back a tear that embarrassed her, and slowly nodded her head, pointing to the bare, pale, fatty flesh on the inside of her forearm. It was winter; no one would question her long sleeves until she had the guts to expose her insolence. A thrill traveled the length of her spine, and she felt a chill goose flesh her skin. Suddenly, she was beyond excited! Something she had longed over for oh-so-long. The price—if there was one—would be well worth it. ‘Right here,’ she loud-whispered, as she grazed her naked arm for the last time. Heck, they weren’t getting along anyway, about anything, to be accurate. Might as well be deserving of his unhappiness with her, and also get something she had yearned for her entire life.
The memory was clear as crystal to her now. She lowered her eyes, feeling his glare across the courtroom. She felt she might be sick to her stomach as her belly churned inside her. They had stood before God and everyone, including some people now in this very room, and had promised forever. They had mortgaged forever, sparing no expense on that flashy wedding, proud when it reached the society pages. One thing was right: a lot o’ money spent on a wedding don’t make you mo’ wedded…it just makes you mo’ broke. A sad smile slipped from her lips and her eyes caught the beautiful design that tattooed her forearm. His name in a rainbow of colors swankily carved in her arm. What could she do to cover it up? She couldn’t possibly walk around with her ex’s name tattooed all over herself. Despair gathered and dripped from the edge of her eyelids, just as the judge faced her husband and asked, ‘Is this marriage irretrievably broken?’
Many—if not most—people ‘wear’ tattoos. For some, it is their ‘outfit’, their clothing; it matters more to them than what they climb in to wear for the day. Some people live in shacks and are covered from head to toe in expensive art they paid someone extravagantly to carve on their body. Some have tiny little images or words—a memory of a loved one, a challenge they had to overcome, a prison marking to wile away the time, a bad decision on a delusional night. Some tattoos tell a story; to some, it is a rite of passage. To others, it is a sad memory you wish you weren’t reminded of, one you would give anything to remove, or to never have done in the first place. We all must admit that forever sometimes comes too soon, and all the promises, empty and shallow, were never deep enough to outlast a dying (or dead) decision.
Wonder if God ever has those same regrets? After all, He has to look at the tattoos—the names of all of us carved on His Son’s skin whom He came to redeem. That’s a lot, especially when many of us fall away, some never to return, some never to hear their name called in the first place. But I am reminded that, just like the woman here in our story, He loves us and thinks of us as special enough to carve up His own body with our sin and shame, with my name and yours. And onto you and me, He has tattooed eternity in the palm of His hands.
Isaiah 49:16, ‘”Can’t you see? I have carved your name on the palms of My hands! Your walls are always my concern.”’
