inked and unfolded

{photo by Rachel}

I want to unfold. let nothing in me hold itself closed. 

for where I am closed, I am false. 

I want to be clear in your sight.

:: Rilke 

every time I get a new tattoo, people ask me why. in fact, it's become such a habitual thing that I immediately start to consider my why the second my body touches the artist's table. it's a holy experience for me, stepping from the wide open outdoors into the small shops with needles on the tables and art in its own right covering walls and bodies. 

on Friday, as I leaned back on the table with the leg of my jeans rolled up and the buzzing of the gun in my ears ringing like a holy chant, I could feel the reason, the why flowing through my soul like electricity. 

I get tattoos so that I never forget and so that I can never hide again. especially this one.

I've hit that point in my life where I'm actually willing to be transparent. actually, if I'm honest, I'm less willing to be this open as I am realizing that I am meant to be splayed wide, visible for all to see. 

it's a strange sort of untucking. 

some of it is smooth and easy, the way that skillful hands fold and refold and unfold crinkled paper to form a crane. most is awkward, a dissecting, a flailing akin to the way the fitted sheet pops off the corner of the mattress when tossing and turning and nightmares cling tighter than sleep. it's not as graceful as I'd like you to think, less ornamental and tidy than my carefully placed words might lead you to believe. 

the new words on my skin read simple and smooth :: we are all stories in the end. there's a reason I got these words, this quote from my favourite television show of all time {Doctor Who}. because my life is stories, everything about it and every aspect of me. I have steeped myself in stories, my story

{photo by Rachel}

and her story and our stories all merged together. it's something I can't avoid anymore. it's something that has followed me forever. 

but that's why I get tattoos. that's why I walk again and again into the place thick with the scent of ink and cigarette smoke and something else, something rising like sacred incense from the Holiest Place toward Heaven. it's wafting out through the tear in the curtain. it's a thin place, where the Lion's roar is clearer and His breath smells sweeter still. 

because if it's there, permanent, on my skin, I can never shrug it off and leave it on the side of the road. even when I get scared. 

these marks on my skin, this new one in particular, are my Ebeneezer stone. my place of help, my flesh-guides to remind me that I am called, that I am not hidden. I am unfolding, one smooth piece and one awkward flail at a time. and each of these marks are helping me remember. 

I am clear in Your sight. 

{inspired by a Story Sessions prompt. join us? there's always room for you here with us}

bedtime stories :: peace

{via pinterest}

some can look back to little girl moments and think of stories read. they can remembering hearing whispered once upon a time from parental lips and smiling with fairytale princess pride.

but me, i look back at one story that was told me over and over. because it was my favourite. and it was not the one with glass slippers or spell-breaking kisses or even tumbling rose petals. it was the one where the little girls died, and their daddy wrote a song.

i can still hear my daddy's voice in my head, even now, as he told the tale at bedtime. the storm that rocked the vessel that sent three little girls to the bottom of the ocean, a wife's broken telegram of three words that screamed of a whispered broken heart.

:: safe but alone ::


and a broken father who boarded a ship to the place where his daughters passed the veil and entered their Father's arms. and the words that melted together with the tears that splashed into the salty tomb that bore his children.

when peace like a river attendth my way

when sorrows like sea billows roll

whatever my lot, Thou has taught me say

it is well.

it is well 

with my soul

this was my bedtime tale. and i never felt safer when told this story of the little girls' drowning and their father who found peace in the storm. because when Daddy kissed my forehead and turned out the light and i snuggled beneath my bright blue tye-dyed duvet, i would smile.

{via pinterest}

because Jesus loved little girls, and He loved their daddy too. and i was a little girl, and i had a daddy. and if something happened to me, i would be with Jesus. and if something happened to my daddy, i would be okay, too.

and now i'm all grown up, with a patchwork quilt and a dark blue and gold duvet of my own. and sometimes when the night feels darker than it ever has, and the world seems empty and so much like a billowing storm, i go to the window and look out into the frozen night.

and my lips form the words that my daddy taught me.

when peace like a river

and when the notes are formed in church, the tears drip down. because it's still my favourite hymn. i still feel safe when the melody fills my ears and i mentally take my daddy's hand and squeeze it the way he used to do, and still does when we are together.

because i'm a woman now, not a little girl. but i still love my daddy. and so does Jesus.

and i need to call my daddy and thank him for teaching me this song. because my eyes are full of unshed tears as i write this.

because this is not a fairytale with happy ever after. 

this is truth with eternity like a cloak for my shoulders. 

this is peace like a river.