A cross in the forehead

Not only did the ancient crone have a small Cross tattooed into her forehead right above the eyebrows and running down into the nose, she also had her mother's name tattooed onto her left wrist, and her father's name tattooed onto her right wrists. She was 90 if she was day, maybe more, honestly. And the story behind the tattoos was amazing.

She is the only person we have met here in the former Yugoslavia who was born in the era of the Ottoman Empire. And it seems the Turks had a penchant for taking young children away and whisking them off to Turkey. The way that one people group here began to combat the child-taking was by tattooing the Cross into their foreheads and the names of the parents on each arm. That way the parents and the child would forever know to whom the child genuinely belonged. And to this day, this ancient Vloch woman clearly has a cross tattooed into the middle of her forehead.

I think perhaps we should start this tradition once again . . . in the church . . . where we who say we are Jehovah's children would make the strongest declaration of that fact, a Cross tattooed into our foreheads, and several names of God tattooed onto each wrist. Isn't that the kind of declaration of possession, faith and commitment He is longing for from us? Isn't that the type of irreversible binder we should place on our lives? Why wouldn't we do that? Oh . . . the answer to that question is all too revealing.