Forgiveness Under My Skin.

I am not known for being a rebelious person. I didn't care what my family said about tattoos, I wanted one. I was 18, after all. One of my best friends and I had been planning on skipping our senior all nighter to go and get tattoos.
My mom had talked to our pastor, some of her friends and even looked up some stuff on the internet about whether or not tattoos were acceptable in the Bible. To her dismay our pastor told him that there is nothing in the Bible that says getting a tattoo is a sin, especially if I'm getting a tattoo that shows the goodness of God.
My mom was still dead set against me getting a tattoo. She refused to take me to a tattoo parlor, or to the bank. She wouln't even tell me where my birth certificate was.
I wasn't going to let this stop me. The day after graduation Leah and I were looking up different tattoo places and decided that places like "pain for sale" didn't sound so welcoming. We decided that screaming needle was where we were going to get inked :)
Neither Leah or I could drive at the time and since our parents weren't completely supportive we decided to start calling friends to see if they would be willing to take us to get our tattoos. Mary came to our rescue! She, Leah and my other friend Nikki came to my house and picked me and my friend Jill up.
When we got to screaming needle we talked to some tattoo people and showed them our birth certificates and stuff so they could see that we were old enough to get tattoos without parents permission. Leah went first. She got a beautiful tattoo of a tree and the verse Jeremiah 17:8 which is one of my favorite verses... and obviously Leah's :) She said that the tattoo just felt like an electric tooth brush on her rist.
Then it was my turn. I paid the man $80 and he brought me into the next room and had me sit on a bench. He washed my left foot and put the stensil on. It looked beautiful. Better than I had even imagined. I jokingly said "that was easier than I thought." I asked the man "How bad is this going to hurt?" And he said "It will just feel like a cat scratch on a sun burn." "Hmm, that doesn't sound too unbarable" I thought. The first few seconds weren't too bad. After about 3 seconds it was aweful. Cat scratch on a sunburn? Think about that a little harder. Cats scratch deep and it hurts. When he went over a bone I could feel the vibrations crawling up my leg. It was agonizing. As soon as he was done, it just felt like bad sunburn. It was so beautiful. Even when it was swollen and slightly bloody.
Leah and I left screaming needle very happy. They are very clean and if I ever decided to get another tattoo, I would definately go back.
My tattoo took about 2 weeks to heal before I could treat my foot normally again. I still absolutely love it and I will tell you why....

Forgiveness is such a beautiful word. Every time I look at my foot I remember what Jesus did for me on the cross. I don't have to carry the weight of my sin. I can learn from my sins and move on.

My tattoo has given me opportunities to witness to people. I was on the bus a few weeks ago (because I still can't drive) and a man asked me what my tattoo meant. I got to tell him that I was forgiven by God because he sent his son to die on the cross. It was so cool.

I don't think tattoos are a sin. Especially one that has such meaning. I honestly think God laughs when people make big deals about tattoos. Leah and I always joked about how one day when we are at the gates of heaven God will tell us that we have beautiful tattoos and that we used them to glorify Him.

I had quite a few people tell me that I made a mistake when I got a tattoo and that I should regret my decision or that I will regret it someday. How could I ever regret God's amazing forgiveness? People who say this baffle me. Thank you for reading this :)

"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool."
~Isaiah 1:18