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}

inked :: redeux

{songbird for joy, flower for feminine, branch for strength}

two days before 2012, i crossed an item off my bucket list with ink of permanence on my skin.

four days ago, i did it again.

and now my shoulder bears the reminder of the best thing i have ever done. this is a memorial of her birth in the most perfect of ways. pain and blood that results in beauty, and this is what birth is and this is what i will bear on my skin for all eternity.

but it's more than that.

and these stones shall stand as a memorial...

for when your children ask

what does this mean?  

:: joshua 4

one day she will touch the mark on my shoulder, and the one on my wrist, and the ones that i have yet to get but will soon bear. and she will ask, what does this mean?

and i will tell her our story. i will tell her how i wrestled with God the day she was born, and how i was humbled, and how He was victorious. and how she was pulled from me like Moses from the water and laid in my arms. and she is my ultimate memorial to His grace. 

{via pinterest}

and that i am marked on my shoulder, and that i am marked from hip to hip, because i love her. 

and then i will point to the cross and tell her of the One who gave her to me. 

i will tell her that He is marked, too, because He loved her, too. because He loved her most. and that His Father has her name engraved on His heart, and that He wrote love in blood.

some people glace at my skin and wrinkle their noses. 

that's permanent, you know.

 even when you're old. 

and i smile. because i never want to forget, and i never want them to disappear. i'm proud of them, my story. my tattoos are my stones in the water, stacked high to remind the children of God from where they have come and where they are going instead.  

and i want to remember always what my Lord has done. 

and so i am inked. 

{linking imperfect with emily today. won't you join us there?}

red string

{via pinterest}

:: i am wind woman ::

:: air daughter ::

:: dove child ::

i am bleeding ink and whispering prayers in the same breath,
learning to lean on windowpanes and not so much on sinking sand.

this is a Solid Rock kind of moment,
barefoot at the burning bush with knees pressed to grass.
leaning on me is futile. leaning on Him is essential.

they say that soulmates are connected by an invisible red string
and no matter how far they go apart, the string pulls them together in the end.

my Saviour and i are tied by the red rope of redemption,
drenched in His blood, one end around my wrist, one end tied to the cross.

and so i'm learning to rely
on red strings and winds from the east
on Lion's breath and eagle's wings.

blessed assurance

Jesus is mine

brave life :: on skin

{via pinterest}

i read a quote today, the first line of a blackout poem from the seeker heart of a girl whom i would call an inspiration and a friend. 

life printed on skin

a self-portrait must follow

this quote curled up and nested in my soul from the moment the words passed from eyes to mind. 

for a long time today, i sat and pondered, because i wasn't sure why these words spun silken threads of Light around me and held so fast. 

life printed on skin. 

and then i was drawn back to brave. 

because everyone sees your skin. 

yes, you can cover certain areas with clothing, even bundled from head to toe if you so choose. but you know what's there when the lights go out and the garments slip from shoulder to floor. 

it's not tucked away under flesh and blood and bone like secrets that even x-rays can't reach. it's like the tattoo that stands bold on my wrist, thick black lines that the whole world can see. 

and it's a choice we have. 

a self-portrait we must follow. 

we can tuck down and hide, ducking behind the blankets and begging the world to close its eyes and just look away, just for another minute of invisibility. 

but i feel like He holds out fingers to those corner-clingers, the ones that ache to hide in shadow. and He speaks of sacredness found in freedom, those footprints in the sand when we let Him left and carry. 

i'm brave now, or at least, i'm striving. 

striving hard to live eyes to the sky with outstretched arms, bare with scars and marks. 

because He's in love with them, and so i must be, too.

in love with those lines and lines, thin and thick in black and white and whispers of technicolour of this self-portrait that whispers to His mercies, His glory, and His salvation. 

inked :: tattooed :: inscribed

{i am left, she is right}
photo by dramaticelegance

today, i crossed another item off my bucket list.

i now bear my first ink. a small kanji on my right wrist whispers two unknown words that beat with my heart.

:: elder sister ::

they match, her ink and mine. as much as two sisters, so different, can have eternal art on their skin, and it be the same. 

hers is thin, almost airy in its strokes. mine is thicker, bolder, with lightly feathered ends. they're different, like we are. 

but there's still one part that is the same. that one word, six letters that makes them the same. 

sister. 

i find profoundness in the marking of one's skin with permanence. it's a sacred act, a mirroring of the marks that my Father bears on His palms. 

the Son is pierced, the Father is tattooed. 

behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; 
your walls are continually before Me.

inscribe: to write, to carve, to engrave. 

{via pinterest}

there is permanence in this, this thing of marking love on the skin. of speaking volumes to a world that might not understand these strange words we speak of "born again" and "redeemed" and "sanctified."

but they understand ink, and blood, and eternity. 

never erased. 

always there. 

and so i wear ink. it's not my last, not by far. it's beautiful and powerful and so sacred. i'm overwhelmed and undone, almost feeling unworthy by the beauty, the reminder. 

because i'm inscribed on my skin, and i'm inscribed on His palms. 

eternity. engraved.

ink smears

do you know what it's like to hear the voice say

flip the pages and flow

but to have no idea what the flow means? black and white in sunless nights without the urge to fight anymore?

did i forget my passion once again, like the strummer with the broken strings who forgot how to sing in the night we mentioned before?

it's battlescars from movie stars who pinch invisible rolls and wail "i'm fat" and nothing can heal that but reality.

and it's hard to get past that when the mirror speaks lies and the world speaks water for truth but the reality is wine, but we tossed it out with the trash because we counted the calories on the back.

do we remember who we are? 

the chosen people with broken telescopes that won't look past tattoos and high heeled shoes and conceiling black robes that leave everything to the imagination?

we forgot our before with empty shores of seashell glass and glassy eyes and one footprint where two would have failed.

because it's nothing we can done alone. because silence is okay, but pushing the door shut and crying don't let anyone see, don't let anyone in

i feel more broken when i turn my back to Him.

because He already sees, and it's broken hearts that He heals and tattered scrapbooks that paint His portrait when we couldn't even see the road.

so black and white is okay, i think, in the long run when all we have is the sun at our back and the Son at the front where the ink flows and we can acknowledge our broken pieces.

so pick up your pen, dusty traveller,

the dawn is here and the ink is flowing.

{linking imperfection with emily}

ink of wait.

(via Belinda @ Pintrest)

it's nothing really.

nothing worth mentioning

but i'm scared.

i feel like i've said this before.

i'm scared of all this newness that is me. i'm scared of this rebirth that is being thrust against me 

time and 

time and 

time and 

time 

again. 

you have so much talent. you're wasting it here. why don't you follow your friends to university? 

the three years worth of familial well-meaning words cut like the lies mixed with truth that they are...

because really i'm not wasting anything.

why don't i go? i'm not called.

but i have wasted nothing.

this is rebirth, i would say. and it's painful.

and oh, how afraid i am

that this might all be loss. all be shame. having to turn and face them all again saying 

i was wrong. He was wrong.

what solace to know that this will never happen.

He is not wrong. 

He is never wrong. 

if His voice speaks wait a while

then wait i must. 

this is writing. this is pouring out my soul like ink upon faded parchment pages. 

this is nothing i regret. 

this is not waste. 

this is wait.

Linking up with Emily at Imperfect Prose on Thursdays
This is my weekly song

Also, please don't forget to enter my August giveaway. (Ends on August 31st). 

Lettre

The one good thing about not seeing you is that I can write you letters.  ~Svetlana Alliluyeva


I am a huge advocate for the written word. 


Honestly, as much as I love and rely on technology for communications with the world beyond my own doorstep...


...there is something so heartfelt about a hand-penned letter, placed in a hand-licked and carefully address envelope, and slipped into a mailbox. 


It requires patience and love and a steadfast hand. 


It's a discipline and a virtue, one of which I am a devoted follower. 


I received my first penpal at the tender age of 11 with a little girl I met through a Christian children's magazine...


...and then continued with my letter-writing delights at the age of 14 with a guy friend I met at Family Camp, with whom I still have a wonderful friendship with to this very day.


And now, I have just recently begun a new mailbox-connected friendship with my beautiful friend Grace of Puddles of Memories. 


There is something so entrancing about the idea about sitting down at a table, taking a pen between my fingers, and allowing my thoughts to flow out from me onto the page...


...sharing everything, no matter how trivial, with someone who waits in a different part of the country to hear my soul's musings. 


There is magic in the art of the pen and paper. 


The computer has its delights and its requirements, that is certain. 


But the whispered mystery of the written word...


...novels made of paper, fragrant with ink and unspoken promises of lands to come...


...the scritching sound made as my pen traces across the blank page of a eagerly-waiting journal, aching to fill its empty spaces with teardrops and overwhelming joys...


...letters written in the careful hand of a patient and tender friend... 


These things have held me spellbound all my life.


And regardless of technology,


I would rather hold the words in my palm. 


The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.  ~Walt Whitman

Poem

Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. ~John Keats

I've had an obsession with poetry as long as I can remember.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have been pouring over old, leather-bound volumes, lost in the elegance of the poetic word.

I don't know why the deep and extremely graceful words of poetry have caught my heart the way they have since my youth. It's not something I can really explain, any more than I can explain my love of chocolate or horse-hair paintbrushes.

Maybe it's the openness.

Poetry has an intimacy that prose simply cannot touch.

A strange sort of melodic power unlike any other written form.

It's curious, really.

Prose, the telling of story or the recording of facts in a narrative fashion...it has a magic all its own. But poetry...the incredible flow from line to line, the whisper of thoughts and dreams once hidden, now laid bare.

Both are magic. Both are intimate.

But only one

Can break the rules,

Change the game

And still hypnotize

The soul.

The smell of ink is intoxicating to me - others may have wine, but I have poetry. ~Terri Guillemets