Margie Snodgrass inspired this blogpost. Well, she's inspired a lot in my life. So has her husband Andy.
Let me begin by telling you that when I was 18 years old sitting at Fox Island Alliance Church on the right hand side, about the 7th row back aisle seat, Pastor Andy looked right into my soul and started talking about me to the WHOLE CHURCH! So rude... He started to tell the church that there was likely a person in attendance that day who thought that they were the exception to begin saved. That they believed that if there was some loophole that made their worth null and void to God they were it. He talked about how ashamed they were of what they had done in their lives and how unlovable they felt. How dare he?
I sat there in that row feeling powerless against those words. Of course he wasn't talking about me, but he was all at the same time. He went on to talk about the power of believing the lie that we've become so shameful that we think there is no way out; that God can come to a point of not loving us and giving up on us altogether. We can even come to a place of believing that God is mean or that there is no God at all. Then Andy said those magic words: but there is NO loophole.
He presented the information that there was nothing I could ever do, or have ever done that would cause God to reject me if I accepted Jesus as my Saver and Savior. He said God sent HIS Son to die in my place for ALL the things I had done. If you had any idea what those "things" in my life were, you would understand the incredible and shocking freedom of that news. That day I realized for the first time in 12 years that God didn't hate me among other things. It was absolutely incredible. I'd love to share more with you privately about those things if you're in a place struggling. Who I was and where I'd been and what I'd done used to be a daily death sentence for me. Now I have a beautifully imperfect life, and I will not ever be the same.
Margie, I have 4 tattoos. One on my ankle started as a half of a heart with a cross inside it. I got that at 13. After that sermon of Andy's I went to an actual tattoo parlor and got it finished and had a butterfly added to my right shoulder representing the change in my life. More recently (three years ago ish) I added two more. My daughter Haylee drew them. One is her representation of the Holy Spirit on my wrist and one is the "he loves me, he loves me not" daisy on my right shoulder. If you look you can see there are just enough petals that it would end up that HE loves me. I need constant reminding. Since then I've wanted to add a few more.
If I could start over, I wouldn't have done it, but now that i'm here I haven't decided whether or not to go through with adding more. I don't want to be covered in them, and I want them to mean something... so there you go. :) Also, thank you Margie for always having a warm smile and gentle heart. Your kindness is something I will always remember from our time at FIA. :) <3 nbsp="" p="">
