Scars

"If I were to tell you, a tale of no tomorrows, of suffering and sorrow would you stay with me?"

Billy Cerveny--Harmony

My arms and legs are littered with scars. Like most men, years of yard work, athletics, outdoor activities, and whatever else have left more than their shares of impressions on me, and I suppose I never outgrew that childish habit at irritating these abrasions. We wear scars on our hearts for constantly living in this fallen world. And we find it is very easy to dwell on all the falls, all the scrapes, and all the bruises that we will inevitably accumulate by simply being human. It is easy for us to irritate these wounds with feelings of bitterness, animosity, bearing unforgivable grudges, blaming others, sentiments of self-pity and be as Mike Schmid sings, "Left to swim a lonely sea, complaining in hyperbole, why me? It's just not fair!"

Of course none of these actions can actually heal, rather such attitudes only cause our wounds to bleed more. Eventually two things can happen; either they will become hard, calloused and numb as ice and impenetrable to anything or anyone else. Or these scars will become seething and infected, becoming a very accessible port of entry for other nasty sicknesses to enter into our hearts and infect every aspect of our lives throughout all our time.

Much of what I am do as I write is examining old scars. Some I have had for a long time now, and can still recall exactly how they were inflicted upon me as vividly as the day I first acquired them. Others are some that I have forgotten about. Others still are very raw and tender. And just like a wound will foment and sting when antiseptic is applied, I expect the same to happen as I write. And there are two directions that I can take.

One is to write from the calloused scars on the outside, and let the hardness of these old inflictions dictate my writing. In which case this treatise will be everything I didn't want it to be: bitter, spiteful, hateful, festering, seething, and worse. While it may feel cathartic at the moment, all I will do is cause more division among those I am writing about, and cause more animosity to grow in myself. THe other approach I can take, is to realize as Nouwen describes, that I am, "called to recognize the sufferings of his time in his own heart and make that recognition the starting point of his service."

If I write from the open wound, and not the hardened scar, that can be used to bring healing and reconciliation. There's something to be said for being wounded. One thing I've noticed about the church these days is there is a lot of emphasis on healing. I've attended a couple healing services, where people claim to have the power of God to give healing. I've heard claims that if we don't receive healing from communion or worship or prayer or whatever it's our own fault because we don't have enough faith. While these ideas may be well intentioned, I don't believe they're entirely right.


Such people believe that we are supposed to live our lives free of pain, free of suffering and sorrow. And if there is pain in our lives, then there something wrong with us because God doesn't want us to experience pain.

This isn't true, for God Himself is in pain, and when we suffer, He brings us closer to Him. I have learned that sharing in sufferings and sorrows are the most important things for us to share. It has often been my wounds that have driven me closer to God; that is true healing. That is as we bow before God as our Lord in all things, He will use our wounds to bring us closer to Him. These simply are a part of life, and if I ignore them as I write, I ignore a great part of being human.
God is sovereign and will heal us as He sees to, when He sees fit to. If God wants to leave me wounded because it makes me depend upon Him more He will, and I will be better for it. Someday God will call us to Him, and He will not only mend our scars and cracks, but will make all things new. Until then, God will use these scars to bring us closer to Him. Paul knew what this meant. God left Him wounded with a thorn in the flesh. Three times, Paul prayed for God to remove it, but God did not. As Paul himself writes:

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me--to keep me from exalting myself!
Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.
And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness " Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.


Human weakness is the perfect platform for God's divine power to shine forth.

Christ understood this as well. As it was written of Him:


He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.


Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.


But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.

God used Christ's wounds to bring us closer to Him, to realize how desperately dependent we are to be upon Him at all times for all things. Nouwen continues, "When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope"