Perhaps the question I am asked the most often by others is, “What’s going on in that head of yours?”  Because I am always.  Thinking.  Lost in the thoughts in my head, much to the wonderment of those around me.

It’s annoying, really.  I wish I could just turn off my brain at times and stop thinking, delving, turning things around me from all angles.  But, for better or for worse, that’s just the way I am wired.  So, this week, I thought I would let you know what I’ve been turning around in my head – and, brace yourself, it’s the high and lofty topic of scars.  (You’re probably never going to ask me again what’s going on in this head of mine.)

And I have to confess, I love a good scar.

Ever since I was a kid, I used to hope that the scratch on my leg or cut on my arm would turn into a scar.  That’s so weird, I know.  And there’s probably some scary psychological reason why I like scars.  But on a surface level, without giving much more thought to any deeper layers, I like scars because I like good stories.  And every scar tells a story.

My most notable scar is on my right knee.  I was a freshman in high school and decided to run track.  Hurdles, to be exact.  And my very first track meet was at a school with an asphalt track.  The black, tarry kind of track with the little black rocks that get stuck in the soles of your tennis shoes.

The gun went off, and I started my race around the track, only to hook my back leg over the top of the hurdle and eat it, knee first, into the asphalt track beneath me.  I had to be carried off the track with an oozing wound and little black rocks stuck in my knee, and that ended my career with the hurdles.  The only good thing that came from the fall was a scar that healed over time and makes a good story to those who ask.

My husband Jason uses a scar on his back to tell small children that he was bitten by a shark.  (He wasn’t, but the way the scar healed sure looks like he was, and now there are dozens of small children all over the city of Houston who believe Mr. Baker was bitten by a shark.  They also believe that he ate a snake in order to win an iPad, which is actually a true story, one I will have to tell another time.)

But in addition to the stories they tell, I think I also like scars so much because they are a reminder in a world where we are so darn fragile, tiny, and small, that while we are destined to fall, we are also made to heal and live to tell our story.  And if our skin can heal in amazing ways, then perhaps our hearts can heal as well.

I was reminded of my affinity for scars recently when a friend of mine’s little girl was running through a hallway and split her forehead open on a doorknob.  The wound turned out to be worse than was initially realized, and after an attempt at gluing the cut, several trips to the doctor, and then finally, stitches, my friend was having a hard time with the whole experience.  She wasn’t upset about the fact that her daughter fell, or needed stitches, or even the pain involved; she was upset that she had not known how to handle the situation correctly from the get-go.  She was grieved that she had caused potential harm to her daughter by not taking the right course of action from the beginning and could have caused her daughter a deeper and more serious scar.

As we talked through it, we both realized that the incident with the doorknob wasn’t even so much about the scar as it was about the story the scar told – that as parents, we don’t always make the right or perfect decisions for our children.  That we can do things that cause them to hurt.  Or fall.  Or carry a scar.  And that is just plain, downright terrifying.

Because if there is one thread that unites all mothers of the world together, it is this: we never want to do anything, intentionally or unintentionally, that causes our children to carry a scar. We shudder at the thought of scars of the flesh or scars of the heart caused by…us.  

But let’s face it: there isn’t a person in the world who hasn’t ended up in the ER or on a counselor’s couch because of a parent’s imperfections.  And just to be clear – I am NOT talking about trips to the ER or wounds inflicted because of physical abuse.  There is never an excuse for abuse – physical, emotional, or verbal.  But I am talking about the kind of wounding that occurs just because we are broken, fallen people who live in a broken, fallen world and cannot always know how to make the perfect decisions for our children.

We are all, all of us, going to fail our children on some level.  And that’s a tough pill to swallow.

But here’s the thing: our scars tell our stories.  And if we let them, our scars remind us of the lessons we have learned from the great teacher and tutor of pain and the healing and redemption we have received at the hands of our Great Physician.  

Because our scars make our stories stronger, not weaker.  And they make us relatable to other people.  They enable us to look at another hurting soul and say, “You have a wound like that too?  Let me tell you where and how I found healing.”

Take Mia Grace for instance.  She has a scar that runs from the bottom of her nose to the top of her lip, a scar that was made because of the surgery for her cleft lip and palate.  And because of her cleft lip, she is destined for more surgeries and more scars in the future.

As a cute-as-a-button four-year-old who knows she is cute, her scar has never bothered her.  She has never once looked in the mirror and said, “I don’t like that scar or how it makes my face look.  I hate that scar.”

But I’ve spent some time thinking about how that scar will affect her when she is fourteen.  Or twenty-four.  She might not be so blind to or casually dismissive about it.  And her scar might have the potential to harm her self-image, depending on the story she chooses to believe.

The first story, the true story, goes like this: “Mia Grace, you were born to a mommy and daddy in China who were unable to care for you the way you were meant to be cared for.  When they saw you had a cleft lip and palate, they thought the government could do a better job caring for you than they could, so they took you to an orphanage where you would have the surgery you needed and hopefully be adopted by a family who had more resources than they did to care for you.  The very thing that gave you a scar gave you to us, your adopted family.  God used that scar for His redemptive purposes in your life, and I, for one, am more thankful for that scar than you could ever imagine.  Your scar is part of what makes you and your story so beautiful to me.”

 

But there is a second story, a story she is going to have to work hard not to listen to, and it goes like this: “Mia Grace, you were born to parents who did not want you and abandoned you at birth.  You were left at a government orphanage because of your cleft lip and palate, and your scar is a perpetual reminder of the fact that you were un-wanted.  Un-desired.  Un-beautiful.”

You see, our scars tell us our stories, but we have to choose what story we are going to listen to.  But, when we know and are known by the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to learn how to let Him tell us the story of our scars through the lens of the truth – through the lens of His redemption, adoption, goodness, glory, and grace.

And as parents, that’s what we must trust about our children’s scars, even the scars we inadvertently make.  They are holy ground upon which the Lord loves to tread, and they have the ability to tell our children something true, right, and beautiful about their past, present, and future as the children of God.

Today, or this week, consider writing out the narrative of your scars or even your children’s scars.  Like I did for Mia Grace, write out two different narratives – the truth and then the lie you are tempted most often to believe.  And then listen, actually listen, to the narrative of the truth that has the ability to set you free and heal you from the inside out as you look at your scars.

Because while we would love to set up ourselves and our children for a life without scars, we must remember that there is always life in our scars, beginning with the scars bound up in our Healer’s hands.  For the Hands that hold us are scarred as well, scars caused by a good Father who allowed His One and Only Son to be crucified so that we could find life in our own scars every time we look, and listen, to the One who works all things for our greatest good, and His greatest glory, even through, and especially through, our scars.