Carol Leigh Frye
Forms. I was raised on a series of forms defined as my parents did their best to teach me how to live for God, be a productive member of society, find a way to help others. My parents also guided my ideas on what was important, what wasn't. Whatever was Biblical has remained steadfast in my life. I still value and hold to that.
Forms are those ideas that aren't exactly Biblical and are more about preference. They are those things like tattoos, alcohol consumption, hair length, piercings, modesty or the lack thereof, children or childless lives, gluttony or the lack of it, tithing, jobs or the lack of them, disability or the lack of them, even which denomination or Bible translation is the "correct" one - or any reason one Christian might judge or belittle or ignore another Christian who doesn't look, walk, or talk like themselves.
One form I was taught was that marriage and motherhood was the highest calling a woman could aspire to. That made my infertility diagnosis at 19 devastating, as if I was "less" than my sisters who have kids. The reality is, infertility made me so much more than my sisters could be. I was my grandfather's caregiver at the top of my CNA career, a privilege they never got. I had other patients who stole my heart and broke it when they died. I was available for many blessings because of my childless status.
Also, the angelic host is childless, always available to execute whatever God commands. That type of availability is precious in God's sight. So to be selected for infertility is to be chosen for an elite availability level most people never experience. That's an honor, not a curse. I renounce that form and declare that the highest calling for a woman is what God gives her.
Another form I was taught was that tattoos and body piercings are associated with secular lifestyle. Yeah, let that legalistic freak flag fly! Each of us is nothing but dust, and each name in the Lamb's Book of Life is getting a new body that won't get sick or die. In view of eternity, what harm can any tattoo or a hundred tattoos do when NOBODY is keeping their body?
But what if body ink could be a silent witness of faith, not only of a certain topic, like the one beside?
God was good to me before, during, and after I grieved for my fertility. My circumstances never changed God or His desire to give me what I needed. My grief changed me, not God. I would get this tattoo as a way to be a witness of God's goodness even though I never got a child. So, I renounce this form, too, and declare God is good.
