The Little Things
December 21, 2015

At the start of 2015 I picked the word “peace” as my word for the year. In a post I wrote last January on peace, I said the following: “This year, I will be consciously focusing on peace and shalom in my life. Regardless of the suffering and the hard things in life, it doesn’t take away peace and shalom. The bigger story is that it is well (and luckily I have that tattooed on me so I see it every day). ”

Shalom. It’s such an interesting word, and I think that most people think of it as a greeting. Shalom is interesting in that it addresses peace- perfect peace, wholeness, completeness. It’s what we desire. As humans, we deeply long for Shalom in our life. I long for the time where I arrive at heaven and am fully complete, fully whole, fully healthy, and perfectly at peace.

With POTS (which I’ve now had for 11 years), I am reminded hourly of my humanness, at the lack of wholeness and wellness in my life. In all honestly, I don’t even remember what it feels like to wake up and feel healthy. I long for the day when my body will be restored and POTS will no longer be something that I deal with in my life.

Shalom. Suffering doesn’t take away our Shalom. Life is hard, it’s painful. We grieve, we suffer, we lose things that are deeply valuable to us. We get bad news. But in the midst of suffering, there is Shalom. I’ve worked hard this year to, no matter what is happening in my life, focus on Shalom.

Shalom has transformed my life. Shalom informs how I choose to think, how I choose to be. I choose to embrace shalom, even in the midst of suffering. I choose to hope in the shalom that is to come in my life.

When I got my first tattoo, someone told me that, with tattoos, we are choosing to put something on us permanently, choosing that we want to be known, in part, by that tattoo. It becomes a part of who we are. I absolutely loved that idea. 

Shalom is the truth that I hold to, so I decided to choose to make it permanently part of who I am:

Shalom Tattoo

Shalom Tattoo

That’s right! Over the Thanksgiving break I got my second tattoo. This one is on my left side on my ribs (this is an awkward place for me to take a picture of on my own, which is why it looks like there’s a slight slant to the tattoo- there’s not in person, but I have to hold the phone funny and twist a bit to get a picture of my side!). My other tattoo I see multiple times a day (which I LOVE!), so it’s weird to have a tattoo that almost no one has actually seen. I wish I could see it as often as I see my first tattoo, but I love that it is there, in the back round of my life. Shalom is now permanently part of who I am. I’ll carry the word until I die.

Shalom. Find Rest. Be still. 

←

2 responses to “An Invitation to Shalom”

  1. Abbie Mood says:
    December 25, 2015 at 8:35 pm

    I love the script on that tattoo! My most recent tattoo is a mandala at the top of my back, and it’s weird for me to not be able to see it, too!