Living with a Tattoo

When I asked a woman about the tattoo on her arm, she explained, "My former boyfriend did it—he was an abusive alcoholic." She was now happily married to another man, but every day she was reminded of the pain in her past. She would have preferred to remove that tattoo, but it was burned into her skin.

We've all met people whose past is tattooed onto their souls. They've experienced abuse, lived in immorality, or acquired addictions. Some are women who live with the memory of an abortion; others are men who have fathered children out of wedlock or ruined their families. I heard a news report of a young woman who turned her own father over to the authorities because she had seen him commit a murder when she was a child. Think of the memories tattooed onto her soul!

"I'm trying to rebuild my life, like a house that has been destroyed within and without," a woman wrote after she heard one of our radio broadcasts. "I hope to rebuild from the ground floor, and, if possible, not use any of the rotten wood I find all around me. This time, I hope to do the maintenance so that it won't be ruined again."

How different our past would be if we could relive it knowing what we know now. Louisa Tarkington expressed the wish of millions when she wrote:

I wish there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again
Where all of our mistakes and heartaches
And all of our poor selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door
And never put on again.

Is there such a place? I believe there is.

True, we cannot begin again in time, for hours become days, days become months, and months become years that can never be relived. No one can go back to the starting line in the race of life. Tacking an outdated calendar on the wall will not bring back the years, nor allow us to erase imprints left by mistakes of bygone days. We cannot go to God, as one teenager did, with "Lord, I pray this accident might not have happened!"

Like holes left in the wall after nails have been removed, the gaping wounds of sin often leave ugly sores. God wants to bandage our open wounds so that they might be healed. When those wounds have become battle scars, we will know that healing has taken place. Guilt, regret, and bitter heartache can be put behind us—there is a land of beginning again. Our past need not control our present nor future. It is never too late to do what is right; never too late to live our remaining days for God.

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of a woman who has a love affair with a young minister. As the story opens she is being punished by having to stand on a public platform with the large letter A, for "Adultery," on her breast. She holds her illegitimate daughter in her arms. As the scenario unfolds she makes public expiation for her sin, taking the insults of the townspeople as her due—but she steadfastly refuses to name the father of her child.

In the meantime her husband, a shrewd psychologist, pretends to befriend the man whom he suspects was the accomplice in the affair. On the pretext of being a doctor, the woman's husband makes this man squirm for years because the minister will not admit his guilt.

In the story, the immoral man who would not own up to his past suffered far more than the woman who faced her sin, accepting her shame and guilt. Better to come clean than to live with painful secrets that imprison the soul! If the immoral man had been willing to face his past, he could have lived with a clean, forgiven conscience. In choosing to feign innocence, he had to secretly confront his sin every single day.

The Hope of a New Beginning

In the Old Testament we read the remarkable story of Gomer, a woman who knew only too well what it was like to live with the letter A stamped on her soul. Her husband, Hosea, a prophet, had been commanded by God to marry a prostitute. Most Bible scholars believe she was not a harlot when he married her; nevertheless, God did say, "Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord" (Hosea 1:2).

Hosea had two children by this woman; but when the third was born, the prophet became painfully aware the child was not his. He named the boy "Lo-ammi," which means "no kin of mine."

Gomer continued her affairs, flitting from one lover to another, never finding the acceptance and fulfillment she craved. One day she fell into the hands of a man who was unable to care for her. Hosea saw her from a distance—distraught, humiliated, without food or clothes. Instinctively, he took some bread and wine and gave it to her slothful lover so he could take better care of his mistress!

Gomer's moral toboggan slide continued until she finally ended up in the hands of a man who had her auctioned off to the highest bidder. Men stood and gawked at this hapless slave whose beauty had long since been marred by the high cost of emotional and spiritual decadence. Hosea outbid the other men and paid the fifteen shekels of silver and a bushel (a "homer") and a half of barley.

Was Hosea irrational? What man would make such a painful sacrifice for a wife who had humiliated him, flaunting broken marriage vows and treating her children irresponsibly? Let her sleep in the beds she had made.

Foolish or not, Hosea brought her home, knowing he could now be with his lover again. He believed their marriage still had a future. They would rekindle the love of their courtship.

What had inspired such hope in the prophet? Hosea was convinced that they could begin again. He hoped she had reached bottom, had learned her lessons, and was ready to flee to him and to God. If she was not ready for a new beginning, her future would have died permanently.

God Himself gave Hosea hope when He said,

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Bring her into the wilderness And speak kindly to her. Then I will give her her vineyards from there, And the valley of Achor as a door of hope. And she will sing there as in the days of her youth, As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.

(Hosea 2:14–15)

Gomer would sing again.

And there is more to the story. Her marriage vows would be reinstated, and she would live in purity and faithful commitment to her husband.

I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, In lovingkindness and in compassion, And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord.

(2:19–20)

Eventually, she would be almost as though she had never sinned. Yes, she would sing again. She would stop her running and come home where she belonged. Spiritually speaking, her virginity would be restored.

I'm not saying the book of Hosea was written to give us an example of how a husband should...