Scars To Heal

 

I’ve gotten a few tattoos since John died. It’s been very therapeutic and healing every time I’ve gone in with a vision and come out with a permanent scar on my body that represents an aspect of my life and my healing. 

But today…today I made some mistakes. And now those mistakes are represented on my body in a very permanent way. 

Hard things have been building in my life for weeks. I’ve consistently struggled with deep and heavy emotions, sometimes feeling like they come out of nowhere. Small things have felt too heavy. Minor inconveniences have felt unconquerable. And yet, somehow I was able to truck along. I took care of things, I handled things, I was brave and strong and all the things I needed to be. 

Until I wasn’t. 

I got an okay tattoo from a man who was rude and arrogant and hurtful from the very start of our session together. There were ways I could have corrected the situation but, honestly, I was incapable of even processing through the kind of emotional pain his treatment put me through. 

Sure, you might think it’s not a big deal. A man was an obnoxiously rude to me…so what?

Well, let me tell you. He made me feel broken. He made me feel weak. He made me feel incapable of protecting myself. And that triggered the most dramatic sense of loss and fear I’ve felt since the first few weeks after John died. 

After he finished the tattoo he didn’t even clean up my skin or wrap the tattoo up. I currently have ink all over my leg from all the wiping that naturally comes along with any tattoo. And I legitimately had to beg him to wrap it up afterwards. 

I walked out of that shop, covered in permanent and smeared ink, and I felt used and dirty. 

And I felt like a part of me broke again. 

This tattoo didn’t make me feel closer to John. I didn’t feel like this tattoo helped me heal. It felt like a healed wound was ripped open and left to bleed.

This tattoo truly represented the broken parts of me…and that hurt so very deeply. 

I felt like I’d made a huge mistake and the only person who could truly tell that it was “okay” and make me truly believe that truth was dead. 

But he wasn’t there…just like he hasn’t been here for the last year and a half. 

And I lost it. 

I walked off into an empty parking lot and I called a friend (this was a poor choice…but, apparently, that’s my new MO). I lost my mind about a tattoo and an artist that didn’t actually destroy me…but it felt like it did. Umm, sorry friend?

I hung up and realized that the phone call to vent to my friend didn’t help my heart. And that was scary. What was I supposed to do now? What avenue of bravery was left to

me?

I drove home and I started panicking. And I didn’t know how to handle that! I pulled into the driveway and I called my sister. And I just let myself break. 

I knew this tattoo wasn’t the end of the world. I knew, logically, that it looked “okay”. But I couldn’t breathe and it felt like my whole world was over. 

I’m not supposed to be alone. Death is not supposed to steal husbands. Widows are not meant to wander the earth. Babies aren’t meant to die. 

God created perfection. And we weren’t designed for sin and suffering. We were designed to live in the goodness of a perfect Heaven. 

But earth is so very broken….and so are we. 

I hung up with my sister and I called my mom…because, sometimes, you just need your mom. 

And when I tell you that I lost it, I want you to know that I sobbed and wailed and spoke absolute grief to my mom. And she spoke love back to me. 

She sighed and she reassured and she loved me. 

And I just wailed all of my fear and all of my hurt and all of my brokenness to her until I had nothing left. 

And she reminded me that it is ok to be sad…to be this sad…to be this broken.

My mom, like my sister and my friends have done, said that I was brave, and that I was strong, and that I have been doing amazingly well. And that it is ok to hurt this much and weep this much from time to time.  And that there is no need to be brave all the time. 

And she reminded me that I am in a desert place, and that I’m building a boat. Just waiting on the Lord to provide the rains that He’s promised would come. 

And then the grief broke…the “widow’s wail” ceased. And I breathed in. And I remembered all the truths and I felt all the purpose I was designed for flow through my body once more. And I breathed out. 

I remembered that scars tell a story. And that I am capable of cultivating the narrative surrounding my scars. And I get to choose how to share it and what it means to me. 

And as I sit on the couch at 2:30am, recovering from the trauma of sudden grief, with a sad tattoo that now visibly mirrors the scarred, imperfect parts of heart, I’m reminded of the goodness of the Lord that I know can be seen in the land of the living….

If only we have the eyes to see. 

This is grief…and the scars I carry…

This is my story…and the song I choose to continue singing. 

Thank you for being here for every part of it.