Scars

I have a mark, a scar, on my back, following under my left shoulder blade, right up against it.  If it wasn't curved, it would spread out to be about 12 inches long.  I have had it all of my life.  It is the end result of heart surgery to correct a problem that I was born with.  Nobody outside of my small, immediate family knows about it.  Swimsuits were always tough for me to wear.  Tank tops? You almost never saw me in them.  My scar informed my modesty level, all of my life.  

When it came time to pick out a wedding gown, awkwardness and uncomfortableness followed me from boutique to boutique.  The scar must be covered, at all costs! If not, people would stare! They'd talk! Questions would fly!

Interestingly, the area around and on top of my scar has always been very sensitive.  Oh, the wound and the scab have long ago healed, but the reactivity, the trickiness, will always remain.  Paradoxically, without this old blotch.....I would be dead.  This mark, this nevus, saved my life.  My very days have been spared and shaped by this old line of raised and darkened skin.

I've been thinking about soul wounds and heart scars lately.  I've been prompted, thinking about my "blemish", to analyze how I viewed soul wounds and heart scratches.  I have lately been thinking about, as a Christian, how I wear my "owies".  Previously, wounds and scars were things to be hidden and protected and never, ever talked about.  I wore them with shame, with uncertainty, and honestly, how could I even think that scars could be shown with confidence? How could lesions of any kind ever be viewed with pride, with fondness, with even a small smile of remembrance??

So many times I have asked the Lord, begged the Lord, to take pain and blotches and gashes away from me.  Countless times in the last 7 years I have cried out to Him to remove all memories and marks, all traces and vestiges of agony and anguish, and all outward "stains" that came with such raw hurt!

My musings have changed a lot lately, in the midst of personal agony and the bearing of another deep, throbbing, heartbreaking gash.

How can wounds, scars, tears, become badges of honor and dignity? How can we, as the Old Testament talks about, turn our scars into landmarks of, tributes to, reminders of, where we've been? Can we look at our personal struggle and pain as signposts of how the Lord has delivered us and from where He's pulled us?

I'm working on this.  I'm asking God to heal the wounds but leave the scars so that I'll never forget, and Lord willing, that I will bear my stripes, uncovered, out in the open, with dignity and courage.  By His strength, I hope to wear my scars as stories that others can see, so that when others look at me, all they will see is His faithfulness and His mercy to me.  Lord, may you grant these things to me this day! Amen.

I'll leave you with a favorite song, from Point of Grace..........

I used to dream

that I could rewrite history.

I used to dream

that each mistake could be erased......

I used to pray 

that You would take this shame away,

hide all the evidence of who I've been.....

But it's the memory of

the place You brought me from

that keeps me on my knees,

even though I'm free.

Heal the wound

but leave the scar,

a reminder of how merciful

You are.

I am broken, torn apart!

Take the pieces of this heart,

and heal the wound but leave the scar!

I have not lived a life

that could boast of anything,

and I don't take pride in what I bear.

But I'll build an altar with 

the rubble that you found me in

and every stone will sing

of what You can redeem!

Heal the wound but leave the scar,

a reminder of how merciful

You are.

I am broken, torn apart!

Take the pieces of this heart,

and heal the wound but leave the scar!

Don't let me forget 

everything You've done for me!

Don't let me forget 

the beauty in the suffering!!!