Imprinted

I feel the imprint of your life on mine.

As if from afar, I remember my little boy,
Squishing into the paint,
onto paper…
an imprint of your hand.

A card made for those you loved,
an indelible mark of you.
An outward symbol of love:
from the tracing left by the hand
found so often in mine.

You have made your mark on me.
But this mark,
not on paper,
but in my very blood.

I have read
that baby leaves a perfect imprint of DNA on momma,
visible years, even decades, after birth,
and the tearing open.
Bringing healing;
taking so much…

But leaving even more.

Your life,
woven into the fabric of mine
making it hard to say…

Goodbye.

There are those who make a mark on us.
On who we are;
who we become.
Encouraging us to greater things.
To trust in Him who can do great things in us.

There have been those
who have walked alongside us in grief,
who have knelt before the throne of God above
asking for the one thing we needed;
God’s presence.
Who gave us something we craved;
their presence.

I don’t know where we would be without it….
they have left their mark.

How much more
the imprint of the Savior on my soul
when he knit me together in my mother’s womb;
When he knelt beside me in the darkness,
where no one else could fully go.

And on the cross
When his blood poured down
Covering me and my sin
The righteous for the unrighteous…
A rescue mission for his beloved.

Scars on his hands
So that we did not have to be scarred.

There is power in this blood
And in the Spirit given to me:
an indelible mark
on my spirit.

There in the upper room before the cross,
He comforted them with these words,

“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”

John 16:7

An indelible impression of his Spirit within us…
Upon us.

The infinite, eternal God is in the business of making marks.
He calls us to make our own, in His name.

We are the imprint of Christ in this world
Made in His image
With the Spirit of God within us.

We are his hands and his feet.

We are his mark.