Tattoo #2 (Psalms 18; back right shoulder blade)

My first true test into manhood came at the expense of my health when I was 20. I had increasingly become more and more sick due to my lungs filling up with mucus and therefore infections. I was having to go into the hospital every year between the ages of 17 and 21 often for a weeks at a time. The hospital was lonely and scary even for a 21 year old. I can’t pin it down to anything other than you are at your weakest point when you are cooped up in a hospital bed.

I was beginning to have the onset of panic disorder. I was having panic attacks regularly, without provocation. I slept less and I worried more. I asked for help from one of the pastors from my parents church and I asked for forgiveness from the lord. I had done nothing wrong nor felt resentment for why these panic attacks were the cause of a spiral downward. I just wanted clarity and a new beginning.

I wanted to take care of myself as if I were an adult. For too long during college I had accepted my fate and figured I would live each day out as if it were my last. That catches up to you though. Psalms 18 represents me being pulled out of my clumsiness, my being drowned by evil forces. The section that appeals to me most simply reads….

16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.

17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong will be me.

18 They confronted me in the day of my to disaster,
but the LORD was my support.

19 He brought me out into spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.

20 The LORD has dealt with me according you my righteousness;
according you the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.