Scars mark where we have been, not where we are going.
People look at something scared and see something ugly. Something to be fixed, covered, or even corrected. Scars can be physical, emotional, or social. Since being on the race we have experienced or seen all of these.
Whether it be the scar that poverty and hunger has left on a community or getting scratched by a cat on the roof of our hostel in Nepal, attempting to moving it away from a friend. Even battling homesickness has left some scars on our hearts these last few months.
While living in one of the poorest countries in the world you witness a lot of these scars. A person or child who has a scar on their chest from a vodo ritual done when they were a baby is just the most common example. I have seen this on countless people in every country I have been to while in Africa. This fear and demonic oppression is so heavy here and it starts to take a toll on us.
I have been wondering how people can live in this much fear and think that all to life is to live in fear. Then God reminded me, scars aren’t about the present. They are about the past.
At soccer ministry this week I met a sweet little girl named Tia. She wore my glasses the whole time we were there. Her smile was so sweet and honest.
Tia lives in a village where there is a group of people called “Chewas”. This is a group of men who paint themselves black all over there body and white designs on their faces who worship the dead. When they are dressed like this they refer to themselves as animals and if you call them humans they will attack you. They will chase anyone they see with whips and machetes and attack them unless they run into a house or are on school grounds. We were playing soccer with children on school grounds when we saw them run by dressed up. They ran by several times and every time the children would cling on to my team and I hiding behind us. You could feel the fear in the air.
At the end of the soccer game Tia came up and sat in my lap, when I looked down I saw her arms covered in scars. I don’t know if it was an accident or abuse or something else but it looked like it was bad and deep when it happened, spreading over the top of her entire arm. I wanted to cry for her. She had been though so much pain in her life, she lived in fear of the “Animals”, her village worshiped the dead, and her stomach was extremely extended from being malnourished. Her life was so hard I just wanted to take her away from it all and give her a happy life with love and joy.
Then I realized what she was listening to. As we were sitting down and my heart was breaking, my teammate Mikyla was giving the word of God. That’s when I realized I can’t take every child away from all this hurt. I can’t heal them from the wounds they will encounter or protect them from all the fear. I am just a human. But God has the power to protect us. He has the power to heal us, to give us a life full of joy and happiness. God is the only one that could protect all the little children. On that afternoon Tia got to hear about the love God has for us all while sitting in the lap of someone who was showing the best example she could of the love Jesus shows her every day.
When I see countless children with scars my immediate reaction is to see the pain they have gone through but their faces tell a different story. They smile from ear to ear and laugh with such child like happiness. They don’t worry about the past they choose to see joy. That’s the lord working in them even if they don’t know it yet.
An open wound is present tense pain and hurt. A scar is when that wound and pain has healed, not completely. The memory is still there. What has happened hasn’t been erased. Instead what has happened has made them stronger. I never thought I’d learn this from brave little children in Africa but here I am with a softened heart to tell all of you about the strength of these children.
