Scarring
I have a scar on the inside of my calf where five equally spaced holes were punched. I can remember the exact place it happened. Every time I see these scars, I can picture the bike. I can picture the trail. I can picture being in the back of the group of friends as they rode off not knowing that the chain had fallen off my bike and when my foot slipped these sharp metal teeth dug into the inner side of my leg. I can even sort of feel that same pain as I looked down and saw that for some reason these five holes weren’t bleeding yet, just sort of traumatized holes.
Now, this wasn’t some awful bike accident. It wasn’t something that left me permanently injured and obviously didn’t take my life. I don’t think about it daily or anything like that. I’ve had hundreds of other bike crashes in my life. Some worse and some not as bad, but the scarring always reminds me of this one particular crash.
This morning I started thinking about the way that we interact as people and how sometimes the things that we do can sometimes cut someone so deep that no matter what happens we’ve left a scar. A scar that will always be there. They may forgive, they may not think about it every day, but on the off chance that something causes them to look at that scar, even the smell in the air when they were hurt comes flooding back to them and they can immediately identify with the moment they were hurt.
Now, I know Biblically we are supposed to forgive seven-trillion times or whatever, but I’m curious what your thoughts are on the scars. What do you do when something causes you to revisit that moment of pain and there’s nothing you can do but be reminded of the moment those scars showed up? Have you truly forgiven if these scars aren’t gone? What if someone has wounded you so deeply that you’re not sure you can ever fully recover? What do you do with the scarring?
Just some light Friday thoughts for you. Ready? Go.
I have written on my blog on this topic before. Those times in our lives where we were hurt that badly, I call them our mud puddles. What happens over time is they dry up, only problem is when it rains again those puddles can get messy. We have two real choices when these mud puddles in our lives get all messy again. First choice is to go splash around in it by dwelling on it and allowing it to effect our attitude. Second choice is to go around the mud knowing that the enemy would like nothing more then to have us distracted by the mud in our past. How we react to the mud being messy again is affected by whether we have exposed every part of those puddles in our lives to the Lord. When we are honest with Him about every detail of it, He makes them solid again. Eventually they become solid enough that rain cannot make a mess of them anymore, ruining the enemies plan to splash mud all over us.
That’s deep. I’m pretty good at letting things go. In fact, probably 90% of the scars I do have are left from my parents when I was younger. Metaphorical scars, that is… and not even any really bad ones. And they weren’t bad parents, it’s just easy to look back and think they shoulda done some things differently. But it’s always easy to look back and see what SOMEONE ELSE should have done.
I really can’t even think of any other people who left me scarred. I do have a scar on my left elbow though that your post made me think of. I was roller blading in december of ’95. Every time I look at it, I think about falling backwards with my left arm stretched back. I was mostly in shock, because It really didn’t hurt at first at all, but I had no clue what just happened, and the first words out of my mouth were “I bent my arm.” I couldn’t even think of the word “broke”… kinda makes me laugh. Then on the way to the hospital I passed a billboard with a girl on rollerskates who was falling backwards, and it said “OUCH”. Not sure what that was about.
Once again, nice topic. All of us carry scars it is what we do with them that makes the difference. One of my favorite bands, Collective Soul, sung about ‘scars’ in their song, ‘Never here alone’:
Had a thought but it hurt
So I let it go
I let it go
See I don’t need these verses
Laying down their blues on me today
I’m never here alone
I thought I heard some angel say
You’ll never be alone
I know I heard my father sing
I’m never here alone
I’m never here alone
Have a scar, yeah a scar
So I let it show
I let it show show
See I don’t need tomorrow
Fearing from the pain of yesterday
[chorus]
I’m starting back where love begins
Gonna get me those blue skies
Those blue skies again
[chorus]
They sing about not dwelling on thoughts and ‘scars’ and remembering the God will never leave us when He is needed.
I remember that crash, and my brother would still say you owe him for some damages!