so, this happened:

Anyen pa ka detwi kado ak plan Bondye gen pou ou. -Rom 11.29
(for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable)

and i LOVE it.  i am actually quite obsessed with it, and not ashamed to show it off to the world.  Even my lovely Haitian mama, Lucita, who chided me in Creole not to do it told me today it was pa plis mal.

Since returning from Haiti this summer, I've been enduring a pretty hard struggle against the enemy, myself, and anxiety/depression.  It has not been easy to defeat the lies that the devil has tried to get me to believe, even when hanging on His truths and breathing by His spirit.  There have been moments of breakthrough, but seemingly wrapped in straight-jackets restraining them from the full freedom they were intended on being shrouded in.

In moments when despair seemed darker than the hope is light, this verse resonated in my heart as a reminder that whatever the Lord hath laid out for me was not hanging in the balance of possibility. My destiny in Christ is certain; independent of circumstance or the seemingly loss of joy.  The life of light, the gifts of grace and mercy, none of this depended on my ability to *feel* their tangibility.  They are my inheritance and no lie is bigger than the truth that they are irrevocable.   When I felt tormented by my inability to discern His voice, I rested in the fact that no wrong choice could separate me from His love; could negate the call He has placed on my life, the call to love Him and love like Him.

This verse offers comfort that even in this season of desolation, I am His and He is mine, that my life is still entrusted to His faithful hands, and that they would never pull the rug from beneath me, no matter how far it seemed my heart could fall from Him.

I had wanted to get another tattoo on my foot, and I couldn't think of anything quite as meaningful as this verse, especially in Creole.  I'm not as fond of the creole translation, as irrevocable doesn't exactly translate, but I know how intricately the Lord has woven Haiti into my heart, and using this translation was just a not-so-subtle reminder of how Haiti is part of those gifts and call that will also remain unchanged.

As I left the tattoo parlor Tuesday evening I felt a sense of completion, as if this literally and permanently sealed this season as it became branded to me for life.  Nothing, no not even this battle as hard as it may seem, nothing can destroy what God has for me.  I will stand, literally, on that truth for life.