Our scars tell the story of the life we have lived. They are a visible marker of the struggles we have gone through, evidence to the world of something we survived.
Several years ago, my mother-in-law had surgery on both her knees. With fresh eight-inch scars down the front of each one, someone saw her in a skirt, pointed, and said, “Hey, you have new knees.” The scars told her story. Similarly, I watched a man walk into the gas station with scars discoloring his neck where fire had once burned him. He never told me his story. He didn’t have to. The scars did that for him. Neither of them chose those scars, but neither one needs to be ashamed of them either. A scar is not proof that something is wrong with you. It is proof that you survived something.
Too often, though, we want to hide our scars rather than let them speak. We buy the cream that promises to fade them. We reach for makeup to cover them. We work hard to look like nothing bad has ever happened to us.
But that’s not reality. We’ve all been through hard things, and we all carry scars, on our bodies and on our souls. Pretending we haven’t isn’t honest. And it doesn’t just fool the people around us, it leaves them believing they are the only one who has ever been broken.
Here is the good news: we worship a God with the most famous scars in the world. His hands, His feet, His side, still marked by what He endured for us. Those were the very scars He used to prove who He was to Thomas after the resurrection (John 20:24-29). Jesus could have appeared to Thomas whole and unmarked. Instead, He held out His wounds and invited Thomas to touch them. In that moment, Jesus showed us that He is not a God who hides what He has been through. The story of His suffering is something He wants the world to see, because it is the very thing that proves His love.
You are not alone. You are not the only one carrying scars.
While you are likely very aware of the external scars your body carries, I invite you to ask yourself: what internal scars have marked your soul, seen by no one but you and God? How might the story behind those scars be exactly what someone else needs to hear?
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