Tattoos & Testimonies: The Arrow

This arrow was inked a few years ago now. At the time, I’d been recently diagnosed with anxiety and depression. A diagnosis that haunted me. I was overall a happy person. And happy people didn’t get diagnosed with depression or anxiety. I went on meds. I didn’t like them. I found alternatives to help. It isn’t that I don’t believe meds can help, they just weren’t the route I personally wanted to take. I wanted to remember this.

To remember this part of my story. Because I wouldn’t let this take me down. I wouldn’t let it haunt me. I believe in Jesus, and in his joy and truth and get this thing kept haunting me. It wouldn’t leave. Finally in January, after two years of prayers and hope, healing came in a big way. It was a Jesus thing and you can all call me crazy if you want, but that’s what it was.

I still have small battles, seasons of fighting it. But this arrow is my testimony, and I love that I get asked about it and get to share my story. See, arrows can’t go backward after being released. They can only go forward. They go straight in the direction they’re shot. Along with this, in one of Paul’s letters, in Philippians 3, he talks about straining toward one goal: Jesus.

12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.  13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,  14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.  16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained. (Philippians 3:13-15).

I’m not perfect. I’m pretty far from it. But I have hope in my story. And I have hope in yours, too. Jesus is calling you, and he will impact your story so much. Will you let him? Will you let him heal the wounds in your heart, the ones you keep locked up? Will you let him rescue you? Save you. I’m here to talk if you need someone to talk to about it. And I hope you do. I hope you reach out. To me, to anyone else who can help walk you through it. Freedom can be found my letting go.

Freedom can be yours, too.