Sorry if this has posted a few times- my email sent it several times from the original post like an hour or more ago. Technology….
I have a few scars.
One on the back of my leg from an incident in 6th grade where the back of my leg met an idiot’s bike pedal. Pain, drugs, and stitches inside and out later – got a permanent reminder.
I got another one on my knee from a rollerblading incident the summer I lived in California. It was hit a car or fall down. I’m not proficient enough on my blades for any other option. It used to look like eyeballs on my leg- thankfully it’s faded.
The newest addition to my permanent identifiable marks are the s scars from my gallbladder getting taken out and sent off to wherever. Thankfully.
I was checkin these scars out today and hoping my newly sliced open toe won’t have a funky scar and I started thinking…
You know I have to share the thought train that leads up to my random ephiphanies…
We all have scars. And when you hear that phrase it usually leads to negative connotations. I hear “I have scars” and you prepare yourself for some crazy depressing I am still not over it story. I know that may just be my take on it- working with people as a social worker tends to involve lots of negative life issues sharing from folks. The people who want to have something wrong with them because they don’t know how to just “be” without something wrong. The folks who will one up the story of dysfunction someone else has to prove they are more broken. (Aren’t we funny people?) And I don’t dis these folks, just tryin to make sure you get where the typical negative conotation of the word scars comes from.
But as I looked at my scars and thought about a Sarah Groves song I realized that the scars don’t show the hurt. They show the healing. The glorious process of healing or the finished process of healing.
Sara Groves says “they look less like scars and more like healing.”
The irony is that often to have healing, “injury” is required. To fix my gallbladder I had to be sliced open and glued shut. To remove things in your heart that don’t belong sometimes involves pain. I know that often I want to give up something but my stubborn heart holds on til God rips it out by it’s roots. Sometimes slowly and surely removed- sometimes not so slowly. Sometimes the process is ugly. Sometimes the scar looks a little funky. Even as you work through the hurt of healing, you can see a little of the work that is going on. To understand that the hurt is often the work of the healing. (Cuz healin up from my gallbladder surgery was kickin some days even with drugs). Heal up as you go. It is a PROCESS.
But it’s a story of healing. Of eventual done-ness. I guess I just realized today that scars aren’t a reminder of the bad stuff, but of the good part. The healing, the victory. God’s goodness and provision. Even if that healing only comes as we see His face in full- in heaven. He DOES heal.
So brag on your scars- don’t hide them. It shows something God brought you through (is bringing you through) and now you can talk about that. Oh good stuff.
So love on one another-as we heal, as we brag on God and show off our scars. It’s life with one another.
And of course, in the back of my head I’m hearing “By His stripes, we are healed.” And “a bruised reed he will not break” Good stuff indeed.
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