Pastor Steve Got a Tattoo
MY TATTOO WAS GOING TO BE A REALLY SMALL ONE that simply said, “Mat. 6:33,” the abbreviation for my life’s verse: “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33).
I wanted to be reminded of it, forever—in ink! It was going to be so very tiny and hidden on the underside of my wrist, that the only way anyone would ever notice was if I gave a high five right above their sight line or smacked them with on the forehead with my hand.
I was never, ever going to get one but my daughter DD convinced me. Yes, I blame her.
On her 17th birthday she begged me for a tattoo. I said no.
“Please, Dad?”
“No!”
A week later: “Dad?” Please?
“No!”
A week and a half later….
It went on like that for several more months—begging, cajoling, nagging—did I mention that she was a teenager?—until I relented and called the tattoo parlor (do they still call them that?). Much to my delight, the law said you cannot get a tattoo in the great, awesome State of Texas until one is eighteen years of age. Strike a victory for Parental Rights!
Figuring she would eventually forget about it, I let it go with a smile in my heart, thanking God that this body-art desire phase would soon pass, all the while hoping she would not take a secret road trip to Nevada with her ne’er do well high school friends. You know who you are.
She didn’t forget.
On her 18th birthday I lost my right of refusal; DD was now an adult. She could vote, join the military and even get a…a…dreaded tattoo. “Hey Dad, are you gonna get one with me?”
The Solution to Suicide
I TRIED TO KILL MYSELF IN 1989. Things were tough, I was deeply in debt, drug addicted and thinking things were never going to change. I tried to take the selfish way out because I had no hope.
My Uncle Brent shot himself through the heart with a deer rifle when I was a little kid because he had no hope.
Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain took their lives despite the fact that they were rich and famous because they had no hope.
According to the Centers for Disease Control suicide rates have gone up 30% since 1999 “among both sexes, all racial/ethnic groups, and all urbanization levels.” More than half of these individuals had no mental health issues.
The World Health Organization reports that nearly 800,000 people take their own lives each year—one person every 40 seconds—and for every successful attempt, twenty more try. 45,000 people died in America by their own hands in 2016.
Some people believe in the false notion that once this life ends all their problems will be over because there is nothing after death, we just get buried in the ground. That is suicide’s appeal. That everything will be better.
When I tried to take my life nearly thirty years ago I didn’t think of the afterlife nor the people I would leave behind; I just wanted out. Life was overwhelming. I thought there was nothing to live for anymore.
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