Eleven small strokes start my day. The ink tickles that sensitive skin. The promise is made.
In this crazy, messy world, it’s so easy to lose sight of what’s really important. We confine the King of Kings to fifteen minutes a day, to a convenient few moments between hitting the button on our alarm and starting our day. Is it really possible to actually include Him in every second of our lives? To show the world what He means to us without saying a word?
The eleven strokes on my wrist are my declaration to the world, my invitation for God to step out of my bedroom and into the grocery store, the library, and the school, my pledge to the world to act like Christ.
But what are these eleven strokes? What kind of impact can something so small have on my life?
I’ve had two of those strokes the longest: the two halves of a heart. The nails went through Jesus’ wrists as He poured out the greatest, purest love humanity has ever and will ever know. Every pound of the hammer, every scream He unleashed, was the culmination of Love that its Author, Perfector, and Demonstrator lavished on me. Me! And, when I remember that I don’t have a boyfriend like every other teen girl on the planet, these two strokes remind me that I already have the best love and companion there is, one who is writing my love story with His precious blood.
The other nine are more recent. One of the most important things Livy has taught me is what abiding really means. Abiding is taking every breath and exhaling it in praise and adoration of our Savior. Abiding is laying oneself continually at the foot of the cross, continually in Jesus’s arms. Abiding is a never-ending way of life.
And so, the word abide joins the heart on my wrist. Eleven strokes make up the most powerful lesson I have ever learned in my walk with Christ: the beauty of re-creation and salvation and the fullness of a life lived wholly for His glory.
~*~
abide.
samantha morgan.