Scarred for life

"recall the former days"

Hebrews 10:32

Do you have any scars?  If you don't, I'm impressed.  Either you're really careful, or you heal nicely.

I've got a burn mark on my arm, but that's pretty faint now.  And I've got a scar on my chin where I had to have stitches when I was five.  Fell off my scooter.

I know I used to have more scars, but they're gone now.  I wonder why some scars heal, and some stay with us forever.  Makes me think of Jacob, wrestling with God.  Jacob's hip was never the same after that; the muscle on his hip shrank when God touched it.  He had a lifelong reminder of who he had been, and who he had become.  (Genesis 32)

And I think about Paul, who in 2 Corinthians 12 spoke of a thorn in his flesh.  Three times he prayed that God would take away the source of his pain, but God did not.  So Paul lived with it ~ a reminder that God was the source of his strength.

My favorite scars are the ones on two of my fingers.  Slightly weird to have favorite scars, I know.   They were painful at the time I got them ~ both physically and emotionally.  But now they are a reminder ~ a reminder that makes me laugh, and makes me think.

It was about 16 years ago.  I was camping, and pregnant with my Awesome Girl.  So I was a little unsteady on my feet.  I was sitting talking with my sister, when one of said something the other disagreed with.  Next thing I knew, I was storming away from her, furious, and I lost my footing on the rocky ground. 

I guess I put my hand down to take the brunt of the fall, and I cut two of my fingers, on the knuckles.  And maybe because it was on my knuckles, which are constantly moving, the skin couldn't heal completely.  It's really not noticeable at all unless I point it out to you, because of the way skin is around the knuckle.

It makes me laugh now, because not only can we not remember what the argument was about, neither one of us can even imagine being that mad at each other!  We still disagree on things sometimes, but generally we just lightheartedly turn to conversation to something else.  And sometimes that lighthearted conversation is laughing at the idea of being that mad at each other!

But those scars also make me think.  My sister and I have obviously both matured a lot since then.  And I'm so grateful now for a friendship that is precious to us both.  We have another sister, too, and  all three of us are good friends.  Our husbands all like one other, and our kids all get along great.  I'm blessed with wonderful family, on all sides. 

The scars that remind me that it wasn't always that way.   They remind me that I'm a little wiser, a little more mature than I used to be.  That it is possible to be at peace with people with whom you don't always agree, if love is there.

I'm grateful for who He's growing me to be, but I'm also grateful for the reminders of who I was.   Makes me appreciate that much more, all that He has done. 

~ "confident of this very thing,

that He who has begun a good work in you

will be faithful to complete it

until the day of Jesus Christ" ~

Philippians 1:6