The song “Scars” by I Am They has really been on my heart recently. As I am trying to prepare for this mission trip, Satan has really been trying to slow me down. Time and time again, Satan is throwing something in my path. Sometimes it is avoidable and other times, I inevitably go crashing down. Every single time I trip and fall, I stand up with a new scar. As I am traveling this bumpy path, I am trying to remind myself that God is going to use all of this bad for good. However, it is so hard in the moment to look at all the cuts, bruises and blood and think that they will heal. Sometimes it feels like I am going to be in pain forever. Sometimes I feel like I cant even stand back up. But then I have to remind myself that this is all a spiritual battle. I have not seen such spiritual warfare before like I have upon signing up for the World Race. Ironically, that is how I know I am meant to go on this Cambodia and Thailand trip. Satan wouldn’t have a reason to knock me down over and over and to make me question my faith if he wasn’t worried about where God was leading me and how many people God was going to impact through me. Recently, God has been speaking to me more so than ever before. In the lyrics of “Scars” it says “These wounds are a story you’ll use.” I take this in both a literal and a figurative way. When I was a year old, I was in and out of hospitals around the State- each doctor saying that I was a lost cause. I had acid reflux really bad to the point where I stopped eating because everything I ate came right back up and burned my throat. My hair began to fall out and I was becoming very weak. A major medical facility in our area missed the proper diagnoses and cause of my refusal to eat. They told my family to force feed me through a feeding tube through my nose which caused me to continuously vomit, which then lead to breathing issues and made me even sicker. Finally, through a friend of a friend (a God thing), my parents found a doctor in Harrisburg where I got admitted. Though it seemed scary at the time, looking back, Harrisburg was a gift from God. If my family and I went home that evening instead of to Harrisburg, Children Services was waiting for me to take me away from my parents because the first doctor was claiming that my parents were going to do an unnecessary surgery on me. Even then, in a situation that depended on every second, He lead us exactly where I needed to be, to the doctor that was going to save my life and advocate on behalf of my family. I did have a couple surgeries that ultimately saved my life, by the grace of God. Due to those surgeries, I have three scars on my stomach. As I grew up I always asked about my scars and I loved hearing the stories about how they got there. Though it was a fearful and traumatic experience for my family, I loved hearing how God saved my life. That being said, I always referred to the scars as my “miracle scars”. As I reached high school and got to the age of trying to fit in and please everyone, I would look at my scars and be ashamed. I knew they made me “different”. Today, there are days where I still look at them and compare my stomach to other girls’ and get disappointed. But God reminds me that without those scars, I wouldn’t be here today. And because of those scars, I have a beautiful story about how Christ saved my life and continues to save me each and everyday. Along with my physical scars, I have a lot of emotional scars as well. From heartbreaks to let downs, to the loss of loved ones, to being used and walked on. There are many hidden scars inside of me. A lot of the pain from my past has made me question my value and worth- just like the physical scars on my stomach. There are times when I feel broken, used, and rejected. Like no matter how hard I try to simply help someone, they break me in the end. No matter how much I share the Word with someone, they still decide to be an atheist. No matter how many times I am there for someone and defend them, they still turn around and go down their old path. No matter how hard I try to beat my anxiety, it always seems to overcome me. No matter how many times I tell myself to stop opening up to people, I still do because I feel as though God needs me to, and then I later regret giving such a personal part of me and my life to that person who ultimately didn’t seem to take my advice. I have really been questioning a lot in my life. Part of me has been questioning why God would give me a passion that hurts me in the end. I absolutely love helping people. Whether it be the poor, children and orphans, or the lost and broken, it is my passion to help them in anyway possible. But recently, I have seen more harm than good. I found myself crying a couple nights ago and I asked God, “What did I do wrong? All I tried to do was help. All I wanted was to share your love and grace. All I was trying to do was show them their worth and value in You. Why am I hurting so much for simply trying to help these people that I believe YOU placed in my life to love and witness to?” When I say God spoke loud and clear, I mean it to the fullest extent. God responded to me by saying, “All I wanted to do was love everyone. All I did was follow my Father’s commands. All I wanted to do was lead the lost back home into the Father’s arms and to give everyone a better life. And in the end? I had to die a sinner’s death. I was humiliated. My best friends turned against me. I didn’t do anything wrong. Daughter, following God means dying to self.” Boy was I humbled that night. Sometimes God needs us to be broken in order to use our lives as a story to further His gospel. Sometimes God needs to break our heart in order to save our soul. It is truly not a bad thing. Therefore, as painful as it was, “I am thankful for the scars because without them, I wouldn’t know Your heart. I know they will always tell of who You are.” I have a better understanding of who God is because of the hardships I’ve experienced. “I can see how You delivered me.” And because of that, I am able to tell more about who You are because I know Your grace more than ever before. I know Your comfort more than I did four months ago. Scars are not something to be ashamed of; both literal and figurative. Without my scars, I would not be who I am today. It is my prayer that God would use my scars to impact others in a way that they have impacted me. Satan thinks he is hurting me by tripping me up and making me fall down. But what he doesn’t know is God is healing every cut, every bruise, every broken heart, every mistake, every let down and set back and turning them into scars as stories that He will use to help and heal others. If one person gets saved by my scars, it was worth all the pain. How blessed am I to say that God can take some of my most shameful mistakes and use them to help heal and speak to others? Not only does he forgive me, but then He is able to use me. I am saved, I am healed, and I am ready to be used for the glory of God. Here I am Lord, send me.
