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Scars

In fairy tales, you can tell who are the good people and who are bad. Little Red Ridinghood was nice to visit her grandmother but the wolf was evil to eat her.

But in the real world, it’s hard to know. Sometimes the bad person is in your family. And the child can’t run home to where it’s safe. Instead, the child is made to think he’s evil because he can’t perform to his parent’s unrealistic expectations.

The child grows up and becomes a parent. He lives what he knows. The cycle continues.

Most men who turn to other men for their sexual fulfilment come from homes were the mom is controlling.
Women who choose a female partner come from homes where the father is absent or compliant.
Women who live in abusive relationships come from families where the father is over-bearing with no love.
This doesn’t even mention the families where the parents’ fighting leads to divorce or separation.
Now the innocent child becomes the perpetuator. The cycle continues. He’s responsible for his actions. He can no longer blame what he does now, on what was done to him. He pays for his own actions.
Exodus 20:5 tells of the father’s sins passing to third and fourth generations.
Evil continues.

As parents, we want to create a safe place for our children to flourish, bloom, and grow. Even the “good” parents responds poorly at times and hurt their child.

The toughest son is not hurt by physical correction, as much as his feelings are hurt by wrong accusation or blame.
A cut is made.
Not where it can be seen, but deep, where no one sees.
Instead of allowing the wound to heal, it’s picked, the scab reopens and seeps. It doesn’t heal.
It becomes a war-prize.
Our self-pity becomes our glory. We have cause to act poorly. We were hurt, don’t you know. We deserve attention.
The wound, which started so small, now becomes a festering infection, taking the entire body’s energy to deal with it.
It consumes us.

We didn’t cause the scar, but we didn’t allow healing. We won’t forgive, let alone forget.

No one else sees the wound, but they sense a presence that hinders getting close. A wall is built. A place for safety.

When my husband removes a skin cancer, he plans, not only how to remove the cancer, but how to fix the patient’s skin without an ugly scar.
Some patients, out of fear, wait too long. They know the cancer is doing damage, but they fear the scalpel. When they finally consent to the surgery, the cancer has eaten their entire nose or ear and a plastic surgeon must reconstruct their face.
Yet physical wounds are so much easier to fix. Aren’t they?
We follow the doctor’s orders and the scar heals.
Scars of emotions last longer than physical scars.
They discolor how we look at life. It forms who we are. We respond to how we were treated, even when the wrongness is no longer there. We become hard, building walls, keeping “safe,” not allowing others to know us.
C.S. Lewis describes this in his book The Four Loves, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

What should you do with the scar?
They are deep. No one else knows how much it hurts.
No physical cutting can remove the problem.
But we hang on to them. We remember the hurt.
How do you stop the cycle?
You can’t.
We are a broken people with a heart bent to do evil.

But, God…

Those words bring hope to man who is broken, scarred, and hurting, and can’t do a thing to change it.
God sent His only Son to suffer all the wounds that sin can bring. He was truly forsaken by God, bearing all our sin upon Himself. By His sacrificial death, He broke the power of sin over us to give us hope and healing.

How does that help us?
When we accept His Work of death and resurrection, He changes us, conforms us to His image. It's not a one time transformation. It's a daily, moment by moment change as we submit to what He wants. We give him our hurts.
We no longer focus on our wounds.
We look to Him.

When we do, we are told to forgive the wrongs. Not by our own strength, but by the power He gives.
When we focus on Him, we forget. We stop picking at the wound. We stop remembering the pain. We find He cuts out the cancer that would fester and kill us. He shows us how to love. We find not only healing and forgetting, but joy.

The scars brought by sin, not only by others, but by our own poor choices, show God’s love. He loves the ugly, deformed, and unfunctional. He brings our focus to Him, our Redeemer, the One Who can bind the brokenhearted, heal the wounds, and bring hope.

Good people and bad people?
They’re all the same in God’s sight. Needing His redemptive Hand, waiting for the patient’s consent to cut out the cancer.

Scars?
I don’t see any scars, except the scars on my Savior’s Hands where He suffered and paid for my wrongs.

 



Displaying 1 comment

That really hits close today! Every one of us carries scars and needs to ask for forgiveness and give forgiveness. Thanks for sharing this, Sonya, I really needed this reminder.

I write about what matters...to you---
women, wives and moms---
about your family, faith and future.
I write about what's hard, what helps and what heals.
I show you how it's done. And not done.
I hold your hand as you find what matters to the Savior.
And let go of those things that mattered to you, but not to Him.
I write about what matters...to Him.
               Sonya Contreras

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Author of Biblical fiction, married to my best friend, and challenged by eight sons’ growing pains as I write about what matters.