Those Beautiful Scars

Quite frankly, I don't want to be bothered anymore by these disputes. I have far more important things to do—the serious living of this faith. I bear in my body scars from my service to Jesus. – Galatians 6:17 (The Message)

We all have scars… both physical and emotional.  I carry a scar on one of my fingers from childhood.  I used to love to watch my Daddy shave when I was little.  I happened to be playing in the water running from the faucet when he brought down his razor to rinse it and cut my finger.  I can imagine how awful he felt.  But when I look at that scar today, I don’t have any memory of the pain or the bleeding.  What I remember is how much I used to love watching my Daddy shave.  What a good scar to have!

I am currently reading a novel about a Nigerian orphan refugee who had seen a lot of violence in her 16 short years.  About scars she says:  “… a scar is never ugly.  That is what the scar makers want us to think.  We must see all scars as beauty… Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying.  A scar means, I survived.”

There are the scars we receive accidentally and the scars we receive at the hands of another, intentionally.  But all scars ARE beautiful, because they are about life.  They each have a story to tell and a story that begs to be shared.  Some scars are so deep and are received in such horrific ways that they are very, very difficult to share, but those are the most important ones share.  It is the sharing that brings beauty to those scars.

Scars that are kept covered through silence never allow the beauty to come forth.  We must share our stories of survival with one another so that others can learn that survival is possible… and that we can do more than survive.  When we uncover and share our scars, not only do the scars become beautiful, but we ourselves become beautiful.  Our joys and triumphs in life shine so much more brilliantly when the struggles it took to get there are known.  Sometimes the biggest triumph in a person’s life is “I don’t beat my child the way my father beat me.” … a cycle broken.  But we would never see that as a triumph without having seen that person’s scars.

How shallow the empty tomb would have been without the scars… those beautiful scars.

Lord Jesus,
Your scars are the most beautiful of all.  Help us to show our scars so that they too may become beautiful.  But most especially, let us find the beauty in the scars of one another.  Amen.

Joys:  Beautiful scars; Helping friends; waking to birdsong