I’ve often said it would be fun to be one of the people who sit around a table all day naming things all while getting paid for sitting around a table all day naming things.  Lip stick and nail polish are two great examples.  Yes, you can find the standard Apple Red, Coral and Mocha, but have you ever looked past the standard, boring person who must be required at the table?  There you will find lip sticks named “Just Like Heaven” (really?) and “Barely Nude” which is not to be outdone by “Never So Nude.”  Next you can move on to the nail polish where you will find “I’m Baroque,” “No Pre-Nup” (which likely explains the former) and “Blowin’ Money Fast.”  I’m thinking someone at that table was in the midst of a very bad life experience.

Because naming things always looked appealing, I really thought naming a blog would be rather easy.  Boy was I ever wrong.  I started the process with my family and came up with a short list of possibilities, most of which were taken.  It would appear that we are the boring people at the table.  Next I enlisted the help of seven women who have been on this journey with me.  They definitely brought the fun I was expecting to the table.  They had some ideas like “Cup-o-Jo” and “Simply Speaking Now” but then things went south quickly with “Going Off Half Hancock,” “You Can’t Handle the Truth,” and “But then again, what do I know?”

Somewhere in the process “My Life in Ink” was born.  It wasn’t an instant favorite except with me and I decided that’s what matters.  I kept returning to it like a table full of sugar cookies at Christmas.  The deal was sealed when one of the women got my wheels turning with a design theme centered around news and ink.

The one nagging negative that kept surfacing as I did computer research was in wondering if people would assume my domain was a site about tattoos.

I’m not one who thinks tattoos are a bad thing.  My main issue with them is that they are permanent, expensive and can be addictive.  You really can cross a line into looking like a clown.  I have told our eighteen year old that waiting until she flips the calendar several more times before she chooses to put permanent ink on her body would be a display of the better part of wisdom.  I’ve also told her that if she can afford a tattoo then she must have more money than we thought she had to put on her own school bill.

Plus, as I researched inking I didn’t really like what I could or would often be associated with.

And then the light bulb went on.

Isaiah 49:16 tells me what God thought was important enough to tattoo on Himself.  It was ME.  And it is YOU.  The NIV says it this way:  “See I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”  The Message says it this way:  “I have written your names on the backs of my hands.”

Me…and you…all down through history.  Me…and you…forever engraved on Him.

And I cannot get over the wonder of the two versions.  In the NIV I’m in the palm of His hands; the place where He can cover and protect me.  In the Message I’m on the backs of His hands; where I’m in His line of sight all day long.

And did you see that in both versions, I am not only on a singular hand?  I am in His care on every side. And so are you.

So ink it is.  I want “My Life in Ink.com” to be a reflection of knowing I am inked onto the very nature of God.  And the best part of all?  He never over-thought whether I was worth the inking.  I simply was….before the foundation of the world…chosen.  (Ephesians 1:4)

Celebrate being chosen with me.  Celebrate the ink.