It Is Written…

A year ago, I walked into a tattoo shop and I handed them a card with the phrase
“It Is Written…” scripted onto it.

I received a price quote, made an appointment, and then when the day came I totally skipped out. I just didn’t even go.

Looking back, I think the reasoning for that is because there is more God wanted to teach me, more that He wanted to reveal to me about this phrase and what it would mean to me.

It would soon mean more than a claim and a tie to my passion for words.
It would soon remind me that He is good and He is greater even when He feels far, even when I am no good, and even when I can’t make sense of Him.

A year later, I made an appointment for the same tattoo, but with a little addition to it.

A lot of people have asked me, why that phrase? What does it mean?
property of and Peyton Elyse
“It Is Written…”

A phrase that has been stamped on the fore front of my mind.

The phrase is all throughout the New Testament, referencing the Old Testament, even passing from the lips of Jesus as He gives us instructions to live by and claiming that He is who everyone has been waiting for.
Even when He is flipping over the temple His disciples remembered that it is written our zeal must be for heaven and not for earth (John 2:17).

Prophets predicted,
Jesus came and fulfilled,
and He promised to come again.

It is written…
that we will experience hardship
that following Jesus will cost us something
that we shall sing our sorrows and our joys
that we should live this life well
that we have a job to do
that we have a God worth following
that, thankfully, our salvation is based on faith and faith alone

I think what get’s me the most is that it was written that the Messiah would come, and He did.

Jesus is who He said He was.

He is who people predicted would come, even if they didn’t believe Him because he sat amongst sinners, thieves, prostitutes, liars, hypocrites, and he opposed things…forcing us to look for the plank in our own eye, to not cast the first stone unless we’ve done nothing wrong.

He didn’t fit into the box, but HE was written and HE happened.

He was and is a King worth following because He blew up our expectations and then some.

And while I wait, while I try to figure out all that was written, recorded, and interpreted I can know (personally, intimately) the Savior who was and is…and is to come.

I can know and trust that there are some things I won’t figure out, but I can still believe that He is worth following.
He is worth pursuing.
He is worth talking about, singing to, and worshiping by giving my life away for His glory.

He is the greatest story, and He has the greatest ending.

It is written…
that we will have heavenly bodies.
that there will be no more sorrows, tears or pain.
that heaven will come.
that He will make all wrong things right.
that He will come again.

property of and Peyton Elyse
Olive Branch…

So while there are things on this side of heaven I know that I may not understand, that I may be frustrated with and that I may not comprehend…I know that apart from Him I can do nothing (John 15:4-5).

I know that He is entirely trustworthy because of the strides He took in my direction.

He ran for completion,
through hell and back,
to have my heart.

I know that I am not the only one He cares for that deeply.
If you don’t know Him, He cares for you like that.

I understand the swing we are on from doubt to trust and that we may be teetering on the line not fully giving ourselves away to grace because we can’t make sense of it all.
He will make sense of it for you, if you let Him.
If you trust Him to.

It is written all throughout scripture,
all over our hearts,
all throughout the stories of those entirely human and entirely broken,
that there is a God who would give it all for us.

He did and He does and He will.
property of and Peyton Elyse

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