A tattoo for the Adventurer

So, I've finally decided to get a tattoo. When I secure my next job. I'm sure many people would be up in arms about it if they knew it, but it's been a long time in coming. My little sister even has a tattoo already, my father has...several, my brother has three (two? four?). My mother has a strong aversion to pain and it somewhat fragile beside that so she'd never get her ears pierced, let along get a tattoo. Anyway, that leaves me, the oldest sibling, still sans tattoo.

I think tattoos are a good and literal way to remind yourself of something and tell the world about it. I want my first tattoo to be rather small, on the back of my right shoulder, maybe two or three inches long. I want it to be a rather delicate Christian fish made out of a simple Celtic knot. Because, there are two things that I am before I am anything else. I am a Christian, and I am Irish (ok, not Irish per say, I'm my surname, but I'm not going to put that on here).

Then, if that goes well I'd like Isaiah 6:5-8 (And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." And I heard the voice of hte Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, "here am I! Send me.") written in Hebrew (ה וָאֹמַר אוֹי-לִי כִי-נִדְמֵיתִי, כִּי אִישׁ טְמֵא-שְׂפָתַיִם אָנֹכִי, וּבְתוֹךְ) on the back of the other shoulder.

I want that verse because I think it's such a beautiful picture of what salvation and repentance and being a Christian looks like. We're these unexpected, imperfect people, and something has happened. Something great and overwhelming and we're overwhelmed by the reality of our own inadequacy. Then, before any change has been made, before we've fixed ourselves up, before we're good to go, God in all his Grace and Glory takes the fire from a sacrifice we didn't offer and cleanses us. Our best and our worst is made pure by Him and for Him. And then he offers a call, and because of what's been done we cry, in all our imperfection made pure, Here am I! Send me. Such is the life of a Christian. At least, that's how I perceive it to be. And here is the mystery, we strive for perfection but just as our good deeds don't save us, they don't perfect us either. The Christian life is a dichotomy choice and predestination hold hands in us, freedom and slavery, too. How then, being a slave to Christ, but freed from death, do you live in freedom?