Every Scar a Story

A faint scar cuts across my left knee. I was a freshman in college when the accident happened. Driving down the Pennsylvania turnpike in the pouring rain, I felt my car lift off the pavement. I was hydroplaning. 

“I have no control!”, I said, gripping the wheel tighter. It happened quickly, but the memory moves in slow motion. My car slid into the median and spun across three lanes of traffic. It clipped the edge of the guardrail and tumbled backward end over end, before coming to rest upside down.  When the car stopped, I was suspended from my seat belt.

My friend was also dangling from his seat belt, unconscious. Maybe it’s Hollywood, but all I could think was, “The car’s about to explode!” I imagined myself heroically dragging him from the burning vehicle, but when I unbuckled him, the fall jolted him awake.

The doors were stuck shut, so we opened the windows and crawled out. As we climbed up the grassy twenty foot embankment, I saw my camera hanging from a nearby tree branch. We stood on the side of the highway shaking, with blood dripping down our shins until a good Samaritan picked us up and drove us to a nearby hospital.

The car was totaled, yet we both walked away with only bruised shoulders and stitched knees.  Every time I see the scar, I’m reminded of God’s mercy and protection. He saved me for a reason. My scar isn't cause for embarrassment, it’s a trophy of God’s grace.  

I have other scars, not visible, but just as real.  My heart is a patchwork of places that have been torn and mended.  I have seen God heal me of the wounds of childhood sexual abuse and the hurts that come from living in a sin-soaked world.  In twenty five years of marriage, Greg and I have waded through infertility, adoption, birthing children and raising five kids to adulthood.  We’ve labored through the struggles of marriage, parenting, money, and ministry. We’ve been wounded and healed, afflicted and mended. And God has never failed to pick up the pieces of my broken heart and stitch them back together with threads of love.  

Stitches hurt. They leave a scar. And they tell a story.  The stories in our scars encourage others and offer them hope and healing. But only when we let them get close enough to see them.  

Early in our marriage, Greg and I went through a dark and painful season.  Like many marriages, we hurt one another, and then pointed fingers of blame and accusation.  Icy words, tears, and raging feelings permeated those days.

We sought help. We went to counseling. Dear friends came alongside us, and spoke grace, truth and a thousand prayers over us. Together, we cried out to God for healing, and determined to follow Him.  We waded through the long, slow, process of learning to be “broken together”.  

About 10 years later, friends in our church came to us in the exact same situation.  Because of the comfort we had received from God, we were able to counsel and encourage them through some gut-wrenching days. When we saw them recently with their two young children, she said to me. “If it weren’t for you and Greg, our kids wouldn’t be here.  I always refer to you guys as ‘the friends who saved our marriage.’”

I don’t say that to take any credit of our own, but to make this point: If Greg and I hadn’t been honest about our own brokenness and invited our friends to touch our scars, they wouldn’t be where they are today.  And if Jesus hadn’t met us in our pain, we would’ve had nothing to share with our hurting friends.  

Shouldn’t we be doing this regularly - inviting people to touch our scars, in order to extend hope and healing to them?  We’ve got nothing to hide and nothing to prove. But we have something to offer. More accurately, Someone to offer.  The hope, grace, forgiveness, and love we extend points always and only back to Jesus!  When we minister out of our brokenness, Jesus gets all the credit.

Shame would have us cover our scars and keep all of His goodness in the dark. Pride would have us pretend we’ve never struggled with THAT (whatever THAT may be).  Reaching out with honesty and compassion brings purpose to our pain.  

Where are your scars? What wounds have been healed by the lover of your soul?   Who in your world is bleeding out? Could it be that God has brought you healing in order to extend hope to her?  Yes, use good judgment and caution. But don’t let pride or shame be the reason you keep silent. Just show up with grace and truth. Point her to Jesus. She needs to know God is capable of healing her broken heart, because He has healed yours.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (NIV) Let that be our prayer. And our practice.