To ink.....or not to ink.....

......that has been a question tossed around lately.

So as you all know, I am a fan of tattoos. Last week, I shared the last one I got done. I enJOY my tattoos, they make me smile when I look at them, I reflect on what they mean to me/what they represent. Some of mine are in places that others cannot see for the most part, this recent one is on my inner wrist, clear and plain for the world to see....They are my own personal expression. I love Jesus!!!!!!!!!!!

I also understand and respect that not everyone feels the same as me when it comes to tattoos. In fact, many good Christians frown upon them and sometimes condemn those of us who have them or want to get them.

I would like to add this disclaimer that I do not claim to have any theological background at all, remember, my favorite version of the Bible is the Children's One I read with my kids. I am just going to speak from my heart and how I am understanding God's Word.

I have heard the verse in Leviticus 19:28 be used as a basis for many. "Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD."

It was explained to me that God is warning the Jewish people about a pagan practice at funerals, where people would mutilate/mark themselves to appease their false gods. Apparently as a form of grieving, they rubbed the ashes of their deceased loved ones into the wounds as a sign of respect and also so that they were "carrying" them with them. Another theory is that they hoped that by cutting themselves and marking images/symbols of idols on their bodies, that they would obtain favor in the afterlife from their false gods, both for themselves and for those who just died.

It is also interesting that when Leviticus is followed to the letter, other passages in Leviticus warn the people from cutting their hair or trimming their beards, wearing clothes that are made of a mix of textiles and growing certain crops beside each other; ( ie, the "mingling" of seed). So what about the man who shaves and wears polyester?

Here is another angle from me and how I think. When also referring to 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body,"

When talking recently with a friend (who is a youth pastor and tattooed as well)....he reminded me that you destroy your "temple" by allowing sin to run rampant in your life. Whether you are tattooed or not.....I believe it is more about who you are, what is in your heart.... how you treat others. We all know unfortunately of the many hypocrites in Christianity. Jesus reminds us that you can clean the outside of the cup and if the inside is dirty, it means nothing.

Ultimately, it is all about your personal relationship with Jesus. I would like to believe (again *my* interpretations/beliefs....) that if Jesus was hanging around here with us, he'd be wearing his sandals, sporting a few cool tattoos and have some awesome dreadlocks. (sorry, the hippie in me is coming out)


So I guess I'll wrap it up with this......I believe Romans 14:23 where it reminds us that anything that does not come from faith is sin. My tattoos come from my faith and my love for Jesus Christ. I have no regrets.

I would love to hear how you all feel about tattoos.......you know I keep it real, so I encourage you to do the same. Remember, I have my big girl panties on, so no worries about "agreeing to disagree" with this topic. If I couldn't handle all opinions, I wouldn't choose to put this out here and ask. I think as long as your comments are shared from what you truly feel in your heart and not out to slam any of our brothers/sisters opinions and beliefs........ there is no right or wrong response.

Thanks!

*~Michelle~*

More Butterfly Love

So if you've been hanging around my world for a while, you know that I am just fascinated with butterflies. In fact, it was one of my first posts that I wrote. I relate personally to them and they symbolize so much to me as a Christian.

As part of our homeschooling......and just my own obsession with them.......we were blessed to experience the entire life cycle of Monarch Butterflies. It was truly one of the most amazing things to be part of.

We took pictures so N could make her Monarch's Miraculous Journey book with each stage captured. I would like to add my own spiritual analogies as well.

OK, we start with a teeny tiny egg.....about the size of a poppy seed. We (humans) start out as a teeny tiny fertilized egg.

After a few days.....the teeny caterpillar emerges, just as we are born/emerge from the womb. Obviously for us, it takes alot longer than a few days......the first three months of dry heaving and the lovely spider veins on my ankles that exploded the last few months of my pregnancies will confirm that.

This little caterpillar ate and ate and ate. I mean, this little bugger wiped out a leaf 20 times it's size in one day. It was amazing to wake up the next morning and see it double in size! It was completely preoccupied with it's own needs.

Consuming, consuming, consuming. Reminds me of when all I did was consume (physically/materialistically) for my own pleasure.

Then when it was full size.....it found it's way to that popsicle stick and hung in a J motionless for a full day(I think it's kinda "God-ronic" isn't it......a "J" for Jesus....ok, ok.....I know I can get corny....but I find that following these caterpillars' lives brings me even further in awe for the Creator and His attention to every detail. Think about it, He could have just created butterflies that laid eggs with tiny butterflies in them, right?)

We went to bed that night and woke up to this amazing sight. How cool is that? This chrysalis even had beautiful gold beads that appeared to be the sealing point. Another "leave-it-to-out-awesome-God" to add His majestic and artistic touch.

I imagine the transformation that this caterpillar was going through was dark and very uncomfortable. But throughout all this uncertainly, miraculous change is taking place. Just like when we are leaving our old dark ways of the world and entering into our new spiritual faith filled life with Christ. Before and even during our transformation or metamorphosis......we are usually lost and in the dark. I know that I was in a painful place physically and emotionally. I was in a confused, uncomfortable place where I almost felt paralyzed like that motionless caterpillar.

I also like to imagine that this caterpillar embraced these changes without question. She trusted that these changes, no matter how painful....would be transforming her to a new and better creation. I remember when I really really really got to the point where I gave my life completely over to God....I just trusted and said "OK God, I have no idea on what You are going to do with me and I am pretty sure it is not going to be easy for me.... (and pretty sure I was a handful for Him to work with as well)....but I am ready for change."

And this was no different....change it was.

Meet SONshine. Her (yes, we learned how to tell if they are male or female) "birth"/emerging was one of the most incredible things we were blessed to be part of. It really was a blessing. I mean, in a little over two weeks.....we got a glimpse of one of God's masterpieces in the making.

She was more beautiful than these pictures can capture....her grace and beauty was breath-taking. She was delicate but had this amazing sense of strength as she pumped her wings, getting ready to take her first flight around our home.


On Friday, Star was "born"....we like to refer to him as SONshine's brother.

It had been raining for the past few days, so we kept them together in a home filled with beautiful flowers until we were able to release them. I was so thankful to have a few extra days with them. They were on my kitchen table so I got to sit with my morning cup of coffee and just take it all in. I mean, how blessed was I to wake up to butterflies in my kitchen?

And although I would have loved to keep them with us forever.....we loved them enough to know that they needed to start on their journey to Mexico soon enough. We thanked them, we said a prayer and released them this morning.

It is all part of the Big Cycle of Life. ;)

"So whoever is in Christ is a new creation:
the old things have passed away;
behold, new things have come."
2 Corinthians 5:17

I hope you enjoyed our little recap of the miraculous journey we followed :)

Peace and love~
*~Michelle~*

Need Help/Advice

OK, so I am turning the tables and asking for you guys to jot down some of your thoughts and possible some good advice on how to address a certain situation I found myself in.

Now one thing I will tell you is that when I am writing, I take full advantage of back spacing, spell check and the luxury of editing.

As we know.....this isn't the case with conversations.

I sometimes have a hard time articulating what is going on in my head and getting it delivered out of my mouth without it sounding like that Charlie Brown teacher or worse.....coming out completely wrong and either dumbing myself down or sending the wrong message.

For example.......the theory that we all evolved randomly from the same amoeba is one of my "hot issues" that gets me riled up. I have this great DVD called From a Frog to a Prince where creation scientists explain so clearly how the evolution theory cannot simply hold true. They show how the air chamber of a bird could never have been "evolved" from a reptile's air chamber, even with the teeny changes over time as they propose, without the creature going extinct due to them having completely different air flow mechanisms/directions. Or something like that. You see.....I'm not too good at explaining it, but I know what I know and I believe what I believe.

So here is the situation.

I have a friend who is a wonderful person.....she believes in God, in the sense that He exists and acknowledges that Jesus also is real.......but she also believes that there are other ways for people to get to Heaven such as Buddhism, for example. We have a great relationship where we respect each other's beliefs......I don't go over to her house throwing my Bible down her throat and she doesn't wrestle me to the ground to a lotus position to meditate. We're cool like that.

anyway......I was at her house the other day with a group of people. I think we got on the subject of God as a spin off of camping as I was talking about our Soulfest experiences. So a bunch of us were kinda chit chatting and I was saying how awesome it is that we can spread the Good News in so many different ways with events, organizations, media, etc.

So this friend waited for a pause and then pitched this question to me......in a kind, but with a teeny bit of confrontation, sort of way:

"So I have to ask you this....If you believe that the only way to Heaven is through Jesus Christ......what about all the people, say in Africa who do not even know about Him? Are they not worthy of being accepted into The Kingdom due to their ignorance? Or what about all the people who sacrifice everything and serve others all their life but are Buddhist, they won't be allowed?.....I can't fathom your God closing the doors on them. That is the problem I have with your Christian belief"

So at first I am a little taken back as it kinda came out of no-where. Thankfully this one guy, who is studying ministry stuff at his church, had all hard core answers that even referenced specific dates/events such as who was ruling the Mesopotamia region in 817 AD and how that affected Christianity as we "know" it today. But I had a feeling it was starting to sound like those famous Apologetics that came to my church that lost me in the first five minutes. I think what she was searching for was just an straight forward clear cut answer.

So she cut him off and turned to me....."Michelle, what do you think?"

gulp.

I was trying to think of the lyrics to Third Day's Creed as an ice breaker opening statement, but all I heard was cricket sounds in my head.

So, taking all my theological background Children's Bible stories, this is all I could come up with.

"Well I believe what I believe, and I choose to live my life using the Bible as The Word, The Truth.....and I know what the Bible tells me. It tells me that the only way to the Kingdom is through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ only."

At this point I am wishing I had one of those fancy iPhones with Internet access so I could jump on BibleGateway and rattle off a few Scriptures.......but alas.....no such luck.

So I just blurted this out......

"I know there is Scripture to back this up, but the Bible speaks about how good works is not the way to Heaven...."

She cut me off.

"But what about those oppressed people in Africa then...what about them? What if no missionary reaches them and teaches them about Jesus? Then what? So they go to Hell?" Now, she was getting a little emotional (in a good way)

I didn't have an answer at the time......I just simply said...

"look, Cindy (not her real name)....all I can say is this. I care about you alot. I try to love everyone (for the most part....keepin' it real!). And I believe it is my job, as a Believer, to share what I believe and bring others to Christ. OK, think of it as an awesome piece of Death By Chocolate dessert. It is so delicious and because there is an endless supply you just want to share it with everyone you love.

(Hopefully God can forgive me for comparing Him to a dessert, nevermind with the word "death" in it)

So I just went on to say "I don't claim to know all the answers, I am just doing the best I can and trying to live the life that Jesus wants me to. I am sure God has a "back up plan" for those who do not know Hiim.....I would imagine that if they do not know Him, then how can they deny Him?"

I had no clue on what to say....so I decided to wrap it up and fake that I had a text message from Josh (even though I don't even use texting) and needed to blast outta there.

My closing statement was this:

"So, this is what I believe....and I have nothing to lose and all to gain by living my life for Jesus and these principles. If I am wrong,.....I lose nothing. I still am living a life full of blessings and filled with joy and love in my heart. But I just want to say.....what if you are wrong? What then?"

So it got me to thinking.......I would really like to have another one-on-one with her and have some more insight on what she wants to know. I would love to have just the right thing to share so that it might prompt her to consider searching more in the Bible for answers, rather than her spiritual self help books or inner preparation guides to peace.

So I'd love to ask a favor of my friends.....can you take a few minutes and share some of your input on this? And if you have Scripture that supports what is on your heart, please include that.

I'd love to show her in the Bible, in a loving, not thumping-her-on-the-head kinda way. ;)

Thanks in advance~
*~Michelle~*

ps: my comment section is now up top with this new layout, btw :)