Scars and Stripes

On my way to the grocery store the other day, I had KLove - a Christian radio station - on while I was driving, as per usual. It's "positive and encouraging" radio and guaranteed not to have curse words, which I appreciate since my kids are usually in the car with me.

This day, though, it was just me. A song I had heard only a few times before came on. It was catchy, and I found myself humming along, trying to follow the words. It sounded like it said, "I'm thankful for the stars, cause without them, I wouldn't know your heart."

I thought, that's pretty. It reminded me of the verse in Romans where Paul says that God reveals Himself through creation.

Curious to know more about the song, I glanced at my car's readout, which had the name of the song and the artist.

The artist is a group called "I am They", which is an interesting name. Apparently, it comes from Jesus' prayer for the disciples, within which He refers to the disciples as "they".

The song was called, "Scars."

Turns out, it doesn't say I am thankful for the stars. It says, I am thankful for the scars.

Whoa... that's a very different meaning.

It got me to thinking. 

Am I thankful for my scars?

The summer after I graduated college, a friend and I stayed behind in the dorms. I was preparing for the Peace Corps and she didn't have her next steps planned out yet, so it was easier to crash there. We both read the same book that summer. It was a fiction novel about three women who meet a fortune teller with the ability to send them back in time to correct one regret. After a week, they came back to the present and had the choice of whether or not to leave their lives the way they were originally, or to make the change permanent.

After reading this book, she and I both decided that since we were unable to time travel, we were going to live without regrets. An idealistic notion at the advanced and invincible age of twenty-two, our whole lives ahead of us.

Although, truthfully, even by then, I already had a couple of regrets. Notably, for the guy I dated in college who treated me abysmally, and for lost opportunities of things I had been too afraid to try. 

Since then, I have had so many more regrets... so many moments I sometimes wish I could go back in time and change.

Yet, at the same time, if I were to go back to change them, I would also be forever changed.

Our experiences, our choices, our relationships, our hardships, even our scars... make us who we are.

In my current work, I teach often on resilience. I tell people I don't like the definition of resilience as "bouncing back" from difficulty because "bouncing back" implies returning to the way things were before. Before the trauma or crisis or challenge. And sometimes, oftentimes, there is no going back. The things we go through change us. Shape us.

And that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Rather than "bouncing back" after difficulties, we should be focusing on how we move forward after difficulties. How do we continue taking whatever those next steps are in our journey, despite how we are changed, how we now see things in a new light, how we now carry scars.

The scars we bear are a part of our life story. They may be regrets, or lessons, or tales of survival, but they are a part of us. We would not be who we are without them.

Am I thankful for the scars?

I have scars from friends. From family. From the Church. From people I thought I could count on and trust.

I have scars inflicted by myself on myself.

The saying goes, "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." But actually, it's how you respond to what doesn't kill you that determines whether or not it will make you stronger.

Another saying is, "hurt people hurt people", which is true. Unhealed hurt people do often continue to hurt other people. Remember that scars are created when a wound heals. But what about wounds that don't heal? They continue to bleed and fester and get infected and infect others.

BUT.

When you acknowledge and address and accept your wounds, then, this is also true: healed people heal people, too.

The weird thing about scars, is they create camaraderie.

Scarred people recognize other scarred people.

Scarred people have more compassion for other scarred people.

Scars help us to have greater empathy and understanding towards others who are hurting. Scars drive us to know better and do better. Scars encourage us to speak up, in hopes of creating a better world.

None of us are spared from pain and suffering in this world. Not even Jesus was spared from pain and suffering, so we shouldn't expect anything more. But some of us bear more pain and suffering than others. Some of us bear WAY more.

I doubt there are many who would say they are thankful for the pain and suffering while they are going through it. Every time I am sick, I think about people who are chronically ill or live with constant pain. I tell myself, you feel yucky now, but you'll feel better soon. Some people don't get to say that.

How can someone in chronic pain be thankful? 

I also think about people who live in unsafe situations. I think about people who are on the street, or don't have enough to eat, or face violence in their homes. Or I think about people in detention, people stuck in squalor at the border, people separated from their children. 

If a wound never has a chance to scab over, if a wound is constantly open and re-opened, how is a person supposed to heal? How is a person supposed to be thankful?

I don't know the answer to these questions. I suspect, however, it has something to do with community. Jesus talked repeatedly about community. About the need to watch over one another, to love our neighbor, welcome the stranger, feed the hungry. The New Testament church modeled this for us. There was no one in need in the early church.

No one in need. 

Can we say that of our communities today?

Do we take care of one another? Truly? 

Do we visit the widow, take in the orphan, attend to those in prison? Do we welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, clothe the naked? Do we actually do the things Jesus told us to do?

Can you imagine if we did, what a different world this would be?

I said it before and I will say it again - you may be the miracle someone else is waiting for. 

What cause or person or situation has He put on your heart?

When we love and support one another, we help each other heal. We help strengthen each other. We build more resilient individuals and a more resilient community. Then we are more prepared to face the next challenge that comes down the road.

For me personally? It would be a stretch to say I was thankful for the wounds, or for the events and for the people who wounded me. I don't think that's true. But now, now that the wounds are healing into scars, now that they are changing my worldview and passion and witness, now I can begin to be thankful.

My hope and prayer for this blog is that by sharing some of my journey, I can help you heal, too.