I view my scars as God's trophies of a battle well fought...
And reminders that He helped us win that battle,
making us stronger for the next!
--Angela Harper, cancer survivor
When grace is ushered in for good,
And reminders that He helped us win that battle,
making us stronger for the next!
--Angela Harper, cancer survivor
When grace is ushered in for good,
And all our scars are understood.
--Mercy Me, “The Hurt
and The Healer”
Just when
you think you’re feeling accomplished and doing pretty well today, you run your
forehead into the edge of a van’s hatchback, and you have to call your mom to
take you to the ER at midnight.
What
happened last Tuesday night turned out to be pretty funny and totally fine
after all was said and done--and after I was able to fall asleep in my own
bed. But the incident brought up the way
I feel about scars on my body and how vanity and insecurity can creep in, even
when you feel like you’re the most confident girl in the world.
Vanity of
vanities.
It was dark
out and super freezing—about 15 degrees.
I was carrying a box out to my friend’s car. I put on my bulky winter coat with its huge
hood. There was snow and slushy ice on
the ground, so I was watching my feet to make sure I didn’t slip while carrying
the box. My hood had cut off my
peripheral vision, and besides I was looking at the ground anyway. Smack
into the hatchback, right above my eyebrow. Ouch.
I put the
box in my friend’s van and then started walking back into the church, thinking I just need to sit down for a minute and
Maybe I shouldn’t drive home.
Thankfully,
my friend Mary Anne was there and asked me if I was okay.
“Yeah,” I
told her. I thought I felt a tear roll
down my cheek, so I wiped it away with my glove, only to realize it was
blood. I looked at Mary Anne. “Oh, I
think I’m bleeding.”
“Yes,
honey, you are.”
At that
point, I put both my gloved hands under my chin to catch all the blood. We finally made it inside to the kitchen,
only to make a little scene—those poor people trying to clean dishes and pack
up leftover food had to see me barge in with blood gushing down my face.
I know my
friends were tired and ready to go home, but they were all super sweet and
helpful—letting me sit down, close my eyes, and hold my head back while one
held the towel on my gash and others wiped the blood off my face and coat and
called my mom and gave me some aspirin.
What fascinates
me about experiencing this is that as I sat there and listened to my friends
assess the gash on my forehead—how long it was and how deep it looked—there was
about 90 seconds where it was all I could do not to break down crying. I didn’t want to cry because of the pain, but
I wanted to cry because I DIDN’T WANT A SCAR ON MY FACE.
Vanity of
vanities.
For about
90 seconds, I wasn’t being logical or reasonable, and I was only thinking how
my face wasn’t going to be the same after this.
Lies creep in when we’re wounded and try to make us believe we’re no
longer beautiful.
That 90
seconds passed, and I was me again, telling myself to stop being
ridiculous. But my forehead was now
feeling pretty sore, and as I sat in the passenger seat while my mom drove us
to the ER, I closed my eyes and pouted for another 20 minutes.
I now have
3 scars on my forehead: one from having the chicken pox, one from running into
a doorknob when I was 3, and one from running into a hatchback when I was
27. I didn’t like this interruption to
my night and to my week. I didn’t like
this interruption on my forehead. I
wasn’t in the mood to hear jokes about how someone will probably still marry me
even though I have this scar.
Vanity of
vanities.
I finally
smiled and told my mom, “I’m milkin’ this for all it’s worth. I’m staying home from work tomorrow.” I knew it wasn’t all that rebellious of me to
take the day off tomorrow, since I would just swap it with another day off, but
it brought me great comfort to think about sleeping in and resting at home the
next day.
 |
I lay on
the little bed in the hospital room while Mom and I waited for the doctor to
come in to stitch my cut up. I was ready to laugh about it
now, give up the vanity, and just be thankful that my mom was there to help me
and that the cut wasn’t any closer to my eye.
But then a
nurse came in, and somehow as we talked a little about my medical history, I
told her about my gallbladder surgery that I had 3 and a half years ago. I should be thankful for the surgery because
now I don’t have all that indigestion and stomach pain from the gallstones. But
the surgery is a sore subject for me because it left 4 scars on my
stomach.
Vanity of
Vanities.
I remember
that the day of my gallbladder surgery and the week of recovery afterwards were
pretty rough. I was nauseated from the
medicine, and my incisions were sore. I
couldn’t roll over in bed because of my stomach pain, and I wasn’t regaining my
strength as quickly as I expected. That
week of recovery left me discouraged.
After that
week, I went to the surgeon’s office for my follow-up appointment. I had had big bandages over my incisions up
to that point, so that day my surgeon took them off. I about had a hissy fit in his office when I
saw my scars for the first time. I
pointed to my belly button incision and said, “This looks so disgusting. Don’t you think this looks disgusting?”
I have no
idea why I asked him this question except that my doctor was so unfeeling
about everything that I was looking for a little sympathy. But my surgeon couldn’t have cared less about
my scars. He looked up from his
paperwork, gave me an annoyed look, and said, “No, it looks fine.”
I wanted to
stomp my foot and yell, “Fine? You think this looks fine? Fine was before my surgery, before you botched up my belly button!”
Vanity of
vanities.
But I did
not yell at my surgeon. He had me sign
some stuff, then I paid my copay at the front desk, and walked through the
parking lot to my car. I plopped into my
driver’s seat and turned the key. Why do I want to cry about this? But lies creep in when we’re wounded and try
to make us believe we’re no longer beautiful.
Of course,
it’s petty. Physical appearance doesn’t define us, and physical beauty is
nothing without a beautiful heart. There
are more important things to worry about, and others have deeper wounds that we
need to help with. Most of us would even say that emotional wounds are more
difficult to deal with than physical ones.
When I was
19, I had a friend whose heart was still bleeding from an emotional wound from
her high school days. She asked me for
advice. She asked me to pray for
her. She asked me what we could do to
stop everyone she loves from having to go through what she went through. That was her wound.
That wound
made her vulnerable—because lies creep in when we’re wounded and try to make us
believe we’re no longer beautiful. She
needed me and other friends to remind her that she was valuable, she was
important, she was beautiful, she had hope in God.
Over the
course of 3 years, I saw God heal my friend of this wound. Maybe there’s a little scar tissue now, but she hardly notices it, and she lives free of the pain that used to pierce her. And now when I know people who are
experiencing a similar wound, I will call up my friend to see if she’ll tell
them how God healed her wound. I want
her to tell them that maybe there’s a scar still, but it doesn’t hurt to touch
it anymore; it’s only a reminder of how God stopped the bleeding and took away
the pain.
Through my
little ER excitement of this week, my vanity is actually off the hook because
my scar blends in with my eyebrow. Most
people will never even notice this scar unless I show them, and the plus side is that I now have a few less eyebrows to pluck. I had to throw away the gloves that I was
wearing that night, but I was able to buy another pair at Target for
$3.50. No harm, no foul. God has even provided what I need to cover
the medical bills. I’m as good as new.
Every scar
comes with a story. Every story can have
a good ending when God heals and redeems.
Lies creep in when we’re wounded and try to make us believe we’re no
longer beautiful, but our God is the Healer. I know you may have deeper wounds
and worse scars than I’ve ever dealt with, so I pray God will comfort and heal
you tonight. Please listen to the song “The Hurt and the Healer” by Mercy Me. xoxo
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