My husband wishes I had tattoos

I just read yet another Christian article that doesn’t quite get the Gospel… sigh…

The author writes about how he met his wife and she wasn’t at all like he had “dreamed of” – she had tattoos and had a rough past. He talks about how he had to come around to seeing her as forgiven and pure, and that she was beautiful in her white wedding dress.

I’m not really going to criticize a post like this too hard because I believe the author’s intentions were good – no, great. I’m sure in his head he was thinking how good God’s grace and love is, how it is reflected beautifully through marriage, and how beautiful his wife dressed in white truly is. But I think in the end that this one would have been better kept to himself. At least until he was older and wiser. And here’s why.

What I wanted him to say at some point is that his “dream wife” was misguided and immature at best, infantile and obnoxious at its worst. His dream woman was based on a fairy tale. Like whatever the male equivalent to Disney princesses is, his notion of his bride to be must have been magical. But we know in real life, magic isn’t real, at least not in the way you think, and that while he may have found a virginal wife with no questionable past, he wouldn’t have the wife he now has. The real magic is how a woman with such a past, like the one he described as his wife, is now unblemished and white as snow. She is perfect and pure, as she clings to the savior who won her purity for her. And my wish is to say this to all women who have ever felt that they were less than pure, less worthy than some “good” girl who didn’t have the list of life experiences she has.

Purity is not what you do or have done. It was not lost with how you used to spend your nights. It is neither earned nor undone by your choices. Purity is the cloak Jesus earned for you on that darkest of days centuries ago on a wooden cross. Purity is a gift. It never expires or loses its value. It doesn’t not apply to certain people or circumstances, and it isn’t used up or given away. You are redeemed and always will be. Your standing before the throne of a just and holy God is not threatened by your past, your future, or by those who judge you. If you cling to the cross, you are, simply put, pure. And – don’t miss this truth – you are not less pure than a woman who has never had sex, gotten drunk, smoked cigarettes, did drugs, or gotten tats. In fact, that woman could be less pure than you, if she is not repentant of her own sins and clinging to the cross you and I cling to.

And the right man for you is right now dreaming of a pure woman, loved and sought after by the Creator Himself, bought with a price, made holy and lovely, and being made more lovely every moment she believes. And as that man is also clinging to the cross, you will meet and see in each other nothing but the cloak of righteousness and beauty, made even more beautiful not in spite of the past but because of it. He will recognize in you a true belief and repentance, a true faith and strength, built from a hope hard-bought and a confidence that nothing can shake. He won’t find that in just any woman. He will find it in you, and it will blow all his dreams away.

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