The artist wanted to do Meyer’s tattoo if she ever got one and, at the time, wrote down what she wanted. He kept that information for five years. Then, two weeks before Meyer made her announcement about getting her tattoos, she was in Dallas when a friend told her of someone he knew who was a tattoo artist who believed he would someday tattoo Meyer. “I mean, these things are not coincidences,” she said. So she and her husband each got their first tattoos at the ages of 79 and 82, respectively.
One of Meyer’s tattoos is on her shoulder. “I have a nice little cross back there,” she said, “and it says ‘I belong to Jesus.’” Her second tattoo, which is on her right ankle, is the word “love” and its purpose is “to remind me to walk in love.”
“I already know that I’m going to get letters,” said Meyer, adding, “The whole thing is, it’s between me and God. And it’s a matter of my heart. And when I stand before God on Judgment Day, before he makes any decision about me, he’s not going to call any one of you and say, ‘Is there anything you’d like to add about Joyce?’”
She continued, “Do you honestly think that I’m so stupid that I didn’t pray and pray and believe with all my heart? I did it as an honor to God. Let’s stop the judging, the criticizing and really just don’t bother writing me letters telling me [what] you think.”
Meyer said she’s fine if people in the audience don’t think getting a tattoo is ok, although she noted the audience was responding to the news better than she had expected. The audience in fact was supportive of Meyer’s decision, and many even stood and applauded her.
In a separate video from five years ago, Meyer cited other Scripture passages in reference to tattoos, shedding light on her views about the topic. Leviticus 19:28, one of the most commonly cited verses about tattoos, says, “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.” Meyer acknowledged this verse and immediately dismissed it, saying it was “misquoted” and emphasizing that in this instance, the tattooing was being done “for the dead.”
“You know, we just pick stuff out of here and leave out what we want to,” she said. Meyer gave ear piercings as an example, citing Ezekiel 16, where Israel is depicted as a bride whom God marries and adorns. Part of that adornment is earrings and a nose ring. Elsewhere in the Bible, said Meyer, God punished Israel for wearing earrings as part of a feast to the false god Baal. “So here’s the bottom line,” she said. “It’s all about your motive.
