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| photo curtesy of Pixabay |
I LOVE tattoos. I am curious about every one that I see. What was the inspiration for it? Who did it? Who designed it? Is it your first?
I got my first tattoo when I was 35 years old. I was on a beach trip, had always wanted one, and finally got the nerve to do it. I walked straight in, looked at the thousands of pictures on the four walls and picked the 'perfect' one, a simple dolphin jumping out of the water. Original, right? At the time I had no idea how much I would come to regret that tattoo.
Looking back, I realize how that simple, silly, generic tattoo really doesn't mean anything to me. There is no real part of ME in the artwork. It is a simple, one color, line drawing of something anyone could have drawn up.
Don't get me wrong, I am not throwing off on anyone else's choice of body art, it is just to me, this one is not art at all. When I got my second tattoo, there was much more thought and planning that went into it, and it represents a very pivotal, spiritual, life changing moment in my life.
I was in love, really in love. I found the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Things were going no where really, and I was extremely jealous of another female friend in his life. For weeks I contemplated ending the relationship. It was going to go nowhere and I had been there and done that before. I wanted stability, permanence, love, companionship and someone that was all mine.
During this time, I had a strange encounter with a praying mantis. Every evening when I came home to my third floor apartment, there was this enormous, green, creepy looking bug on my front door. It was in my face, at eye level, and there was no getting past it, without getting rid of it. So a broom swept it off the door, over the railing to the ground below. The next night, the same scenario, and then a third. Was he/she a glutton for punishment? Did they enjoy being swept into the breezeway? What brought this icky bug back night after night?
A friend of mine had told me about the Native American belief that God speaks to us through animals. Now, I believe wholeheartedly in God, and believe he speaks to us in many different ways if we will just listen for his voice. So I Googled the symbolic meaning of the praying mantis. The mantis has the following traits: Patience, Stability, Meditation, Peaceful, Quietness. The ability to be still is most important to the mantis.
Was God telling me, BE STILL? I know he was (and does often even now). "Be still and wait, I have things in control, I am God, I know what I am doing".
So that is what I did. I waited.
Today I am happily married to Randy, the same man whom I nearly ended my relationship with, the love of my life. Had I listened to my emotions and acted on them, we would not be together now. My life would be totally different.
My second tattoo is a reminder to always BE STILL when life is crazy, when I feel like doing something rash, or when I need to know what is right. I have a praying mantis on my right thigh. I try to remember the following verse from Exodus 14:14
The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still Ex 14:14
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