08/28/2024
I told my husband for my Master’s graduation present I wanted a new tattoo… what I failed to mention was that it would be a multiple-appointment, (few more $$ than anticipated), 12 hour extravaganza a couple towns over 😂 ( thank you to Josh from Modern Age Tattoo Company who listened to my insane vision & brought it to life in the most vibrant and meaningful way. It’s better than I imagined.)
My husband still loves me (God is good 🙌🏽), and tattoo is finished! It was inspired by Judah so I thought his page would be an appropriate place to share. 🦁
I’ve been in extensive therapy. And it has been so wonderful. What kept coming up was the grief and shame of sending Judah alone into the operating room. We couldn’t go back there with him. All he took with him was the blanket I made for him while he was in the womb. It was a dark time for me and it changed me. Irrevocably. It broke pieces of me that I knew would never go back the way they had been. I wanted my exterior to change to reflect the way I knew I had changed internally.
I wanted it to be bright, colorful. That time was dark, but I wanted the memory of it to reflect the light. I wanted to see inked into my flesh the reality I fought to believe in my heart- Judah the lion- not alone, but standing with, & protected by the Lamb of God.
The reality is that Judah was never alone. God was with him. God went with him. God was there in that long hallway to the OR. God was there in the operating room. With the surgeons. In recovery. In the ICU. God never left him.
The prophet Isaiah tells us that in those days (the last days) the lion will lay down with the lamb. We know this physical picture is meant to portray the peace he speaks of in the previous verses. How else can they turn their swords into ploughshares unless the Lord has already won the battle? And so my tattoo reflects both the already & the not yet- Christ has already come and conquered sin, but he has not yet eradicated the world of its brokenness.
You can see just barely on the lion’s head, he has a cranio scar- an exact replica of Judah’s. And across the Lamb’s crown the numbers 21 4. Because the Lamb is crowned with the promise of Revelation 21:4
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
And the words inked in black beneath it all, just as it is in the text, Ελπίδα Ζώσαν, living hope. From 1 Peter 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
Our hope is alive because Jesus is alive. And our hope, ultimately, was not that Judah would survive his surgery, though we desperately wanted him to. Our hope was that because Jesus is alive, his sacrifice would be sufficient that even if Judah did not survive his surgery, that he would have gone into the arms of his Father. That one day, I will go into the arms of my Father. For as long as Jesus lives, so too does my hope.
