Skin Sermons

Skin sermons. This one hurt. Yet, so did the meaning behind it. TuPAC once wrote a poem called “The Rose That Grew From Concrete.” He penned the stanzas: “Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's laws wrong, it learned to walk without having feet. Funny, it seems to by keeping it's dreams; it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared.”I just remembered that connection. The cracks on this tatt, the rose that grew. Beautiful. Broken. Jagged. Mess. Chaos. From the concrete. My concrete. A collection of strained events that almost broke me.The butterfly. They kept following me in El Salvador on one of our missions. One died in my hands. The butterfly. Reminiscent of a metamorphosis. Transformation. Loss will do that to you. Either you buckle or get up under it and take flight.Genesis 50:20. The scene: Joseph now in command. His brothers who sold him now in a deadlock famine. Tables turned. At the feet of Joseph they wound up. Hearts beating, emotions bursting, he turns to them and says, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”It all intended to harm, no assassinate me. Yet, insert uh-eeee, God turned it for my good. Genesis...my daughter's name.  The pain turned power. The new beginning. Enough said.Skin sermons. Tattoos tell a story. This is mine.