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.