Tattoo!!! In BB Land it ain't that little teeny dude in Fantasy Island!

Hey peeps!

This is your blonde BB, Jenny, speaking about…what else?  Our TATTOOS!

We BB’s LOVE us a tattoo… Bear with us... this is NOT a campaign for running out to your local tattoo parlor.

We’re talking if we could be TATTED OUT, we would be! We have often thought about buying fake sleeves and wearing them everywhere for the sheer pleasure of flipping some peeps OUT. We can just see the people-watching fun this could create!!

In all seriousness, we do love our tattoos. Not because its cool, not because we like the way it looks, and definitely not because we've had too many glasses of chardonnay and thought a meaningless anchor or infinity sign was a necessity while visiting the beaches of Panama City. (Insert apologies here to anyone who has either one of those tats or loves them some PCB. BB’s are not haters) ;)

We love our tattoos because

a.     We delight daily in their meanings

b.     We LOVE the curious looks and the soon to follow, “What does your tattoo say?”   which leads to the inevitable sharing of the name, JESUS

c:     The beautiful, amazing, wonderfully spiritual, and magical “HOLY SPIRIT     
        WITH US" experience that became our first tattoo: Beautifully Broken.

Anna and I have matching tattoos, but our stories behind this beautiful symbol that we carefully chose to etch into our skin is dramatically different. Different in the roads we have traveled, but completely hand in hand in WHERE we were in our journey: we were totally, unabashedly BROKEN.

And it was beautiful....

Beautiful to SHARE, beautiful to walk through, and beautiful because our unfailing God brought us to this point...together. 

"Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." Mark 5:17 ESV

The Holy Spirit had been whispering to me the word “broken” for some time. I was FINALLY, after a long period of struggle at a point where I could actually THANK GOD for all the bumps, bruises, scars, and shame that life, whether of my own control or passed on to me from others, had endured. (Hold please, we will go into our stories more in the future).

I had just finished reading Captivating for the second time and God had graciously filled my heart with the peace that surpasses all understanding and I had the understanding that all the CRAP of my life was NAILED TO THE CROSS…and therefore, my brokenness, as ugly as it was, was made beautiful.

Then you will experience God’s Peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:7

Beautifully broken...the words resonated in my head and heart and as I shared this with Anna, she LIT UP with songs and scripture (as she does) that laid truth to these words. We were on FIRE (or firah…if you are a true BB ;). We decided on the Hebrew symbols and did our homework and within a week, WE WERE READY! What we wanted was a tangible daily reminder of God’s abundant, all consuming, completely covering, amazing grace. We chose our left wrist, the same as our ring finger, to symbolize our bond with our savior.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end.  Ecclesiastes 3:11

By word of mouth we came upon a Christian tattoo artist in Alabaster named Alley. We were NERVOUS.... Nervous it would hurt... Nervous about the permanence.... Nervous about everything...this was so out of our box! But so, so perfect! I actually remember Anna and I praying over this process...praying we would be able to use it tell others our story and more importantly our Creator's story…praying it would be a daily reminder for each of us… praying it would be a way we could remind each other to stand strong…praying we wouldn’t get hepatitis…praying Jay (my husband) wouldn’t kill us.  We just PRAYED!

It was the start of something beautiful...

Enter Alley… Alley is the most professional, kind, open, honest, talented and beautiful soul. She has an absolutely amazing gift of just calming your heart. Anna and I were in love.

I won't go into too much detail of us sharing of stories. It wasn't something planned... It was truly a time where the Holy Spirit completely took over, held our hearts in his healing hands, and SPOKE...we both took our turns in the chair, both unabashedly sharing God’s grace in our lives, completely comfortable and willing to allow Jesus to unburden our little hearts. We hardly felt a thing. We spoke and shared things that had never been said, hurts that had never been let go of, tears that needed to be spilled, and victories in our sweet Jesus.

We can both say when we left there we felt ALIVE... We were like children laughing and squealing with sheer joy. For at least that moment we felt completely free, completely broken, and absolutely beautiful.

Now we aren’t saying go run out and get a tattoo! We are saying be creative in your walk with God!  And give him glory when He is ever faithful… be He IS ever faithful!  He IS Jehovah Jireh.  We’ve all been through something.  Brokenness is relative.  What brings you to your knees may make me jump for joy because it’s not as bad is the last pain I endured.  Just like Samuel (in I Samuel 7:12) placed a stone as a marker to proclaim “up to this point the LORD has helped us”, Anna and I place a tattoo on our arm as a reminder of God’s faithfulness and grace up to THIS point in our lives!

(From “Come Thou Fount”)

Here I raise my Ebenezer
Hither by Thy help I come
Oh, and I hope by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home

Our BB prayer to you is to listen to the voice of Jesus and what he is whispering to you. Don’t be afraid to raise your Ebenezer, as the song says, and be proud of the road you’ve traveled.  This verse says it all!  Remember we are all in this together!

All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised.  For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us.  Hebrews 11:39-40

We can be certain of this: He is always calling us to His everlasting arms, to His grace, His forgiveness, and His redeeming love.

Holla-lujah!

XOXO,

Jenny (and Anna)