I’ve had a scar half-way up my left thigh since the fourth grade.
At first, it was from climbing a fence that left a long scratch on my skinny 9-year-old leg. But as I got older, and depression took hold, I would cut across the scar and make it form a deep, lasting impression. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to cover up that scar with long skirts and jeans and careful excuses, and a lot more time trying to forget all of the things associated with that scar.
This World Race could have been about running away from all the things that I didn’t want to deal with in the U.S., all the old scars: depression, insecurity, anxiety, and the fresh wounds from a long, dry sojourn in the desert. But those old scars don’t define me anymore, and one day I woke up and realized that I was tired of tiptoeing around the reminders of who I used to be.
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The tattoo shop in Lovech is a room behind a hair salon, divided by a a plastic curtain and a sliding glass wall. It is small (and clean, hi Mom), with barely enough room for the tattoo artist Danny, my teammate Nicki, and me. Nicki took a picture as I took a deep breath and let Danny start permanently imprinting a Deathly Hallows mark onto my left thigh.
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The summer before seventh grade, I was only living for the last Harry Potter book to come out. I finished it fourteen hours after I opened the Amazon box filled with two copies(one for me, one for Alex). J.K. Rowling kept me alive long enough to go on a junior high mission trip the day after Deathly Hallows came out, the trip that made me think life was worth living at least a little while longer.
But more than the mission trip, the symbol of the Deathly Hallows imprinted on me: the triune holdings of the Master of Death, who had to be gentle and good in order to truly deserve his power, who had to give up his life for his friends not out of violence but out of love. J.K. Rowling taught me about Jesus when I couldn’t see more than one day lit in front of me.
Years later, when I looked back on the scar on my leg and the depression that scarred my life, I pictured a Deathly Hallows mark covering up the thin white line. Being able to carry the Master of Death with me at all times, a shield. The Invisibility Cloak, three thick black lines making a perfect triangle, covering up all the things that I used to define myself by.
See, I used to believe in my insecurities more than my God. In Bezhanovo, I found myself snapping back to a constant state of anxiety: am I being a burden? Am I hurting others? Hold yourself in, stay silent, no one needs you here unless you are offering everything you have.
It was the communion that reminded me that I am allowed to take up space- that the body of Christ is incomplete without the full personhood of all of its members, including me. The body and blood of Jesus, who is gentle and good, who had to give up his life for his friends not out of violence but out of love, brought me back home once again.
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I started this journey the only way I know how: by looking back.
My scar is now covered by a small black triangle, a mark which, like the Deathly Hallows, reminds me that I am part of a larger story. This is a story with history and meaning and strength, a story of a deep and abiding love.
I got a tattoo in a hair salon in Bulgaria because I couldn’t go on this journey without remembering how far Jesus has already brought me, and how far we still have to go together.
And someday, I will greet him face to face like an old friend.
