Amber's Story
Amber grew up in a fairly conservative home where her cousin was the only one in her family with a tattoo, and Amber says “it was not looked favorably upon.” But Amber says that even at a young age there was a “rebellious” part of her that thought it might be fun to have a tattoo someday. She took that step and got a tattoo a year ago, after thinking about the design for a year.

Amber chose to get the Greek word for “grace” (“charis”) on the inside of her right ankle. She says she chose this because the concept of grace was something that was heavy on her mind after a previous rough relationship.

“I kept getting hit with the concept of grace and just the amount of grace that God has shown me,” she says. “And, given that, how could I ever hold any hurt that someone’s ever done against me against them, because God’s forgiven infinitely more of me.”

Initially, when she thought of getting her tattoo, Amber says she wanted “grace” in Hebrew. But after word studies, reading commentaries and talking with Bible majors here at Cedarville University, she decided the Greek word — defined as being “unmerited favor” — better described what she had in mind concerning grace.

Once she had her ideas set, she went to Truth & Triumph Tattoo in Dayton, where her tattoo artist drew up the design. Amber says that the design is not exactly true to the original Greek, which can have a harsh look to it, but that the tattoo is like an artistic representation of the Greek, being more “scripty” and “flowy.”

Amber says she thinks this will be her only tattoo, though she has always said that if her mom, dad, brother or sister died suddenly then she would get a memorial tattoo on the inside of her wrist. Other than that, she says that it would have to be something else really big in her life to call for getting inked again.

I hope you enjoyed Amber’s story behind her ink. I also hope that you all will meet me back here next week (or maybe even later this week) because my next few posts will be unique in that I will be posting an article on the tattoo industry that I wrote for a class last semester. For those of you who care, it is sort of a focus piece, beginning with the story of how Brian Brenner (the owner of Truth & Triumph) got into the industry and how his shop and the entire tattoo industry have grown. I really enjoyed writing it, so I hope you all will enjoy checking it out over the next few posts (I am breaking it up into a series because the piece as a whole is 2,000 words…not super conducive with a blog!) Until then, I hope you all have a blessed week!