I'm currently reading a book that is completely wrecking me. For all the right reasons - it is challenging, eye opening, engaging, and tackles some of the most heart wrenching issues that encircle me and the culture I live in. The book, Little Bee, written by Chris Cleave, focuses on the horrific yet somehow hopeful pilgrimage of a young refugee girl and her journey into the heart of a woman who carries heavy burdens of her own. I share this excerpt from the beginning of the book with you; beautiful words that have left me reeling in thought:
On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty, ok? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.*
I've been searching deep within my own soul, wrestling with these words ever since I read them. We don't talk about scars. No, that is not something I discuss when I'm out to lunch with a friend, or bring up in conversation as I sit and cheer on my kid from the sidelines at his soccer game. Scars are triggers for frightful memories, deep wounds, fears actualized. Scars - whether seen or unseen to the naked eye - imply a space in our lives where there was a previous wound. And wounds are something we want to leave sealed up with the scar - not reopen them with words and stories and explanations.
Some scars are easily seen. We can see the discolored tissue, taught and pulling on the older, uniform skin around it. The indentations they leave on our bodies remind us that smooth skin was once there - perfect and untainted. A two inch ragged red line stretches across the right side of my back, where precancerous cells were dug out of me. Sometimes that scar itches. I can feel its tightness when I reach back to touch it. It's ugly. And I know, because of my family genes, that more scars like it should be expected to follow.
There are scars that are easier to hide... or so we think. The wounds that have been inflicted upon our hearts. Our souls. The damage that has caused wreckage in our minds, destroyed our self worth, restructured our identities, and controlled our behavior. These scars could quite possibly be more destructive than any visible one. And often, we don't know when we are staring at another person's scar straight in the face.
"... The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7
As I was thinking about my internal scars, the ones that wrap themselves like dried ivy around my heart, I came to the conclusion that we absolutely can see other people's internal scars. We tend to look at man's outward appearance... We are in the check out line at the grocery store and the clerk is so rude, and we begin to respond. Sometimes we might speak out against him, responding with anger or resentment. But, perhaps what we are witnessing isn't rude behavior at all - if we take a moment to look at the heart of the clerk instead of his actions. Perhaps he just found out some heartbreaking news, felt betrayed, abandoned, overlooked for the promotion he was expecting. And what we are in fact witnessing is... a wound. It's overflowing right in front of us. Or its possible that the wound has already formed a scar, and his actions are his coping mechanism - a direct result of the pain he has been left to deal with.
Some scars we have earned through others, some ourselves. Some we have acquired through loss, infidelity, infertility, and death. Some have formed slowly through every heartbreak, every fear, every failure. Some scars we earned in the public eye. Others we have gained in secret. Scars can mar us - tainting the lenses through which we see, crippling our legs from walking upright, and keep a tight leash on certain parts of our lives that we share with others... the wounds.
Some wounds happened a long time ago. Other wounds are gaping wide open, spilling over into our lives like a sloppy mess, invading every ounce of our existence. Some wounds are drowning us, in our grief and mourning and confusion. The heartbreak is unbearable. We might be asking, Am I going to survive this? Am I going to heal?
So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull... Here they crucified him, and with him two others - one on each side and Jesus in the middle. John 19:16-18
Jesus had been publicly ridiculed, beaten, flogged, pierced with a crown of thorns, and there he hung - nails driven through his hands and feet, bearing the weight of his tortured body. In this moment, no one watching thought he would survive. His own mother and beloved disciples observed their precious leader take his last breath.
And then...
While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. Luke 24:36-40
Precious ones, who are hurting and grieving, who have wounds that pierce you so deeply, who have scars that suture your broken heart and weary soul - Jesus has scars too.
God sent his son - like an arrow shot from His holy quiver straight to the Earth - in all of his glory and beauty and majesty, in flesh and bones to tread the same dirt we step on, to breath the same air we inhale. And when our Savior rose from the grave - the perfection of God's will in defeating death itself - he identified himself to his beloved followers by his scars. He could have stood before his disciples with perfect, smooth, unpunctured skin - how many times do we read about him healing the blind, the sick, and the wounded throughout the Gospels? But instead, he reappears with the evidence of his wounds and embraces his scars and their significance. And he stands there - not as a victim, but as a victor.
1 Peter 2:24 tells us, He himself bore our sins on his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. By his wounds you have been healed. By his wounds you have been healed. By his wounds you have been healed. That abuser that you fled has no power over you, because by Jesus' wounds you have been healed. That mistake you made last week that has left you with guilt and shame will not claim victory over you because by Jesus' wounds you have been healed. The loneliness you feel from betrayal and abandonment from your spouse will not minimize your existence because by Jesus' wounds you have been healed. The sickness that is wreaking havoc in your body will not wreak havoc on your spirit because by his wounds you have been healed. The tears you cry through pain and mourning will not swallow you because by Jesus' beautiful, flowing blood YOU HAVE BEEN HEALED.
Let us stand shoulder to shoulder as victors. We claim healing and restoration IN HIS NAME. We embrace our scars because they speak of our survival - of the work God has done and is doing through our very lives. Let us talk about our wounds, let us share our scars, let us come together as beautifully afflicted brothers and sisters. Through the evidence of our own wounds and scars, we can bring Jesus' healing to others.
*Excerpt from:
Cleave, Chris. Little Bee. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York. 2008. (page 9.)
