*Update* My blog now lives here!
My lungs must be twisted around my heart, because I can’t breathe. The pain is screaming; it is impossible to hold in. There is no rest. There is no safety. Intensity builds and my heart might explode. The thoughts are swirling, as I beg them to slow down. Hope is fading from my sight, and I search for a release from this horror. There was a day when I could recognize truth. When reality made sense.
This occurrence was regular in my life. So I sought salvation and found a temporary release. As the blade slid across my skin, I began to put more hope in this solution. Trying to punish myself adequately for my failures. Maybe the punishment would bring relief. Every day my life revolved around that moment of distraction. Seeking the physical pain to drown out the emotional. And it worked, briefly and partially. It was never enough, and it never would be.
As I saw my brokenness, I concluded that a perfect God could never love me. I had offered sacrifices to cover my sins, but nothing was worthy. Then a pastor, previously a stranger, called me out of a crowd and declared that God loves me and wants me to know that. Soon God showed me that my self harm was an idol, and I began fighting a long battle.
Today, I am free. February 21st marked three years clean. Three years of freedom from bondage to hopelessness, lies, and hatred. But today, the scars remain.
Scars. Proof that we are not perfect. That we have fallen and been hurt. For so long, I wished they would go away. I didn’t want people to see my brokenness because in it I felt shame.
In so many churches, people are expected to hide the hard stuff. We pull our sleeves down to cover the scars of broken relationships, past mistakes, and unfulfilled dreams. Last week at training camp, I was blessed to witness brothers and sisters being freed from pretending.
In the foreword of Grace Fabian’s book Outrageous Grace, Pastor Stan Key writes of Jesus’ scars, “God the Father wanted those wounds to remain visible in the exalted body of his Son. Far from being a source of embarrassment or shame, those scars spoke more eloquently than words ever could of the reality of God’s love and our redemption.”
If Jesus still had scars, why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t you? And why should we hide them?
God uses my scars to remind me of where I’ve come from. What He brought me out of. Scars tell a story of redemption and hope that is incomprehensible without them. So I encourage you to look at the past and look at your scars. Pray for the healing that needs to happen in your life, both things past and present, and embrace the freedom that comes with it.
What is your story, and how are you going to share the hope that we have been given?
