To tat or not to tat, that is the question, for some.
For me its never been a real dilemma should I or shouldn't I tat up my body with ink, the question has always been where should I strategically place them.
I've wanted a tattoo since I was 16 years old, that's when I saw my cousin's tattoo, she doesn't know this but it definitely inspired me, I felt she was so aware yet rebellious against all we had been taught thus on my eighteenth birthday I secretly ended up at a raunchy tattoo parlor on the other side of the tracks in my hometown and got my first tattoo. Since then I've acquired two others, and whilst in Thailand I had my fourth one etched into my skin.
Many a year has pasted since this new tattoo because I wanted this one to be meaningful, not that the others weren't, they were more random than anything, but this new tattoo had to have meaning, it had to represent something greater than me, it had to be something that I could proudly display anywhere to anyone. And it had to be words of great importance and wisdom, something that sums up my life philosophy.
So while sitting in Thailand in the coziness of a my nautical themed hotel room, I opened the nightstand drawer and upon my amazement there sat the Holy Bible (new testament only)amazed because Thailand is a nation comprised mostly of Buddhists so why would a Holy Bible be in the nightstand, but it was. And so I opened the book and I flipped the pages to the Book of John, one of my favorite books, and I went to read John 3:16 a well know and one of favorite verses "For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believeth in him shall not perish but have Everlasting life." and I continued to read down to John 3:27 and I read these words "A man can receive nothing, unless it has been given to him from heaven." Instantly it clicked for me, this, and only this could be my fourth tattoo and so I had the tattoo artist place the verse upon my right forearm.
For I whole-heartily believe that all things come from God, without the blessing from Him we are nothing and we are capable of nothing. So praise be to Him for he bestows blessings upon us, even when we are undeserving.
I pray that even at ninety, when my arms are saggy, weak and wrinkled and my tattoo has begun to fade, that I still hold true to these word. Until then, I wear this new tattoo with pride and reverence.
Peace & Blessings Fam!
Derek
