March Forth! Marssige Edasi!

Fellow Salvationist blogger Jonathan Howell just wrote about his new tattoo, which sounds a lot like my first tattoo! "It is on my right arm, and it is the cross, with the salvation army S going through it, and the swords criss crossing. It's whats inside of the crest. I didn't get the whole crest, just the s, cross, and swords."

Mine is also on my right arm. It is the cross with the swords inside a circle, also a simplified crest. I didn't get the S because I won't always serve in an English-speaking country. In fact, the Salvation Army crest in Estonia, where I am currently stationed, has a P not an S!

I got this tattoo just before taking up my first appointment, as a cadet-lieutenant. I got my second tattoo (left arm, Salvation Army flag without writing) just before being commissioned as a captain in the Crossbearers session. I figure I'll get my third tattoo when we become majors!

I've always wanted to add to my first one, making it more like the crest, maybe adding a crown. I've also been thinking about wrapping words around the second one, probably "to be anything or nothing, go anywhere or stay anywhere for Jesus" (Brengle quote).

I've heard of some Sals who have Isaiah 58, or I assume some portion thereof, as a tattoo. William Booth supposedly referred to this passage of Scripture as the charter of The Salvation Army. (I am anxious for any actual confirmation of him saying/writing any such thing!) Works for me! "If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The LORD will guide you always" gave me a lot of comfort when we were in Chester and I quite literally felt spent!

I personally think no one under 30 should get a tattoo. Of course when I said this to the man doing my tattoo, he said they would have to close down if that were the case! But I thought for several years before getting mine.

The really funny thing is, my ears aren't pierced (neither is anything else!), I don't (won't) dye my hair; most people think I am the last person they can think of who would get a tattoo -- never mind two or three! But it is a really awesome way for me to be reminded of covenant, a subject Captain Court is always going on about (rightly so).

Evelyn