Butterfly Chronicles Volume 50: Hypocrites, Headstones, and Tattoos

This Sunday, I DID something, and it made me have a really great and happy day full of friends and grace and smiles and art.

On September 13, Zachery Michael Sinclair celebrates his one year anniversary in the presence and glory of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.  On September 13, Zachery Michael Sinclair's family will face that day in ways as yet unknown.  Already, the grief ghoul stuck its ugly mug out of the shadows during our vacation - emotional moments full of missing and an empty chair and a dad without his son and sisters cutting new life waves through the ocean.  Anger, tears, fear, hurting hearts, these seep like the beginnings of an oil well gusher.  Our well cap isn't quite screwed in all the way, our strength pulsing an uneven beat, we walk uncharted paths this one year anniversary upcoming.

To his grave I've travelled once, alone.  Above his dirt pillow sits empty grass, headstone absent.  Can you imagine it?  Shopping for a headstone?  What that means?  Can you fathom the choosing of that child marker for that soul empty hole in the ground?  I used to wonder why people waited for such a long time to do that stone placing.  I don't wonder anymore. In a way it seems silly, marking that empty dirt hole, when the soul has a heaven address.  Zach lives alive, but his no headstone led me to need to DO something.

I'm a hypocrite.  Always have been and always will be...all we like sheep going astray and all that...meaning that so often I have looked through laser lenses honing hot on what my self righteous, proud, unloving heart SEES instead of what I should be trying to KNOW.

I've never hated tattoos - I find that some distract me so far from the wearer that I can't find her in all that ink.  I suppose I would adjust to seeing the person given the time and the building of relationship.  I've just always thought tattoos belonged to those people over there...not to me.  I would feel so judged with a tattoo, and I find that so very sad.  Hypocrite.

Now I wear two - artist Justin painted on Sunday, a permanent marker on me, a symbolic headstone, a reminder of flown Zachery's soul right on my body.  I don't want to be the me I used to be before Zach died - focused on the things ABOUT  people rather than the SEEING of people I am supposed to love.  I don't want to see through me anymore.  I hate the me I used to be, but I haven't quite found the me I need to be.  It's the journey.  I reach for His hand to steady the change He needs in me and His way he needs me to see.

Note to self and readers, advice from a hypocrite trying to change:

Before judging anyone for anything, tattoos or child rearing or gossip or actions or reactions or a child who took his own life or any other infinite number of things, STOP.  If you meet someone with a tattoo or any of  the so many things we so often judge, take a moment or 20, and ask that person to tell you his tattoo story or life story or day story.  Maybe the listening will lead to talking and the talking to relationship and the relationship to gospel giving.  I can't wait for someone to ask me about my inked art, so I can tell the story, the Zach story, and the butterfly gifts from God stories.  And I already know some will judge, and the joy is:  I don't care!
 
I'm a tatted 47 year old girl with high hopes that my Zechariah - God remembers and butterfly tats lead to mustard seed spreading.  
Christ told us and tells us to GO into ALL the world - the worlds we know AND the worlds we don't know.  ALL the world - peoples of every kind, from every life walk, of every color, and those who are rainbow inked, peoples with stories we should share and care and turn into relationships.  I don't want to be the me I used to be.  The tats surely speak that loud speaker loud - I want my life to speak a different me loud.  I want my life to speak CHRIST LOUD.  LOUDLY.  LOUDER.


God wants His story told to every kind of people.  Scatter seeds.  Go into all the world.  Everyone has a story.  Everyone needs a listener.  Everyone needs Jesus.  God is all about relationships.  We should be too. Life simple.  Just Jesus.  ALL the time.

Go.  Now.  Today.  Go into the world, listen, relationship, gospel.  Simple.  And I'm still a hypocrite, but God's not done with me yet.

To my man who stands by me and to all the "Real Wives of Kingwood" who got wild with me, I love you and thank my God for you.