“Be more what?”
That’s usually the first question people ask me when the see the phrase printed on my arm. Sometimes, I act a little cheeky and ask them how they would finish the sentence. They immediately smile and understand the purpose of the tattoo. It’s a challenge. It’s a declaration that I can choose how I feel or how I want to be in any situation.
I got my second tattoo shortly after my first. It was the summer leading into the second year of college. My first year was really rough. I wasn’t really sure if I knew who I was anymore.
In high school, I was a straight A student who was involved in everything. Looking back, I’m not sure how I had the energy to do any of those activities. During the first semester of my college career I received my first B, ever. A B? What? And in a math course, the subject I was going to focus my career around. That piece of failure didn’t fit in with the identity I had built for myself.
I was shattered and honestly really depressed. I wasn’t sure how I was going to go back to school in the fall and continue to be the smart math girl everyone thought I was. I felt like a fraud. That I wouldn’t be good enough for my professors, roommates, or friends. That big fat B loomed over my head.
I remember staring in the mirror and shaking my head at myself. I couldn’t let this one B tear me down. I am more than my grades. I am more than my accomplishments and my failures.
These are things I still tell myself daily. The enemy tries to tell me lies, but with this reminder, it’s easier to remember that I can choose to be who the Lord wants me to be. I can be more than any identity I built for myself.
