Scabs, Wounds, and Healing

Michael fell a few weeks ago.  He was running barefoot at the pool (insert lifeguard whistle) and tripped on a little ledge and went sprawling.  I hurried over, knowing he would need me even before the cries began.  I held him and patted his back, I inspected his knees and hands, I kissed his and head and "I got ya, it's going to be okay".  He kept crying, which was strange, because I didn't see any blood.  It seemed like too much for just a bump.  Then I shifted his body and I saw it: a giant bloody toe.  I had looked in all the expected places for an injury, but it was his toe that had been scraped of skin and was bright red.  I took him to the lifeguard station and we did the usual, antiseptic wipe, pressure to slow the bleeding, a band aid.  I kept holding him for several more minutes, then he was ready to get back down and play with his friends.  We changed the band aid when we got home, applied some Neosporin, covered the foot with a sock so he wouldn't mess with it.

About a week later, he came to sit beside me.  His feet were bare again, and he was looking intently at his injured toe.  He touched it gently, and I noticed that a huge scab had formed over the cut.  "Does it still hurt?" I asked him.  He nodded, still looking at the toe.  "That's called a scab," I explained.  "The scab grows over your cut like a natural band aid and it stays there while the skin heals underneath.  Then, when it's ready, your scab falls off."  I was about to say, "And it'll be like it never happened," but I stopped myself.  That's not accurate, I thought.  I mean, he still remembers the fall and the pain a week later, and while he might forget about it over the course of his life, it's not going to go away.  It was a big enough cut that he'll probably have a scar , a silvery patch of new skin to remind him of the fall.  So instead I said, "When it's ready, your scab falls off and you'll have a little scar where you got hurt.  But once it's healed, it won't hurt you anymore."  He looked at me then.  "It won't hurt no more?"  Nope, it won't hurt no more.

I thought some more about wounds and hurts.  I thought of James, who hits his bruises, hoping it will make them go away.  I thought of my sister, who would pick her scabs too soon and bleed, who would pour nail polish remover over her cuts.  Thankfully she learned better wound care in med school, and when she performs surgery, she stitches and glues and pieces her patients back together.  But it's not just our physical wounds that we mistreat, that we run dirt into or pretend they don't exist. We do this in our wounded hearts, we use crude, ineffective means to cover and hide and our hearts just get mangled in the process.  There is only one way to wholeness, one course of treatment in our bodies AND our hearts to fully heal.  We have to flush our wounds, treat with antiseptic, cover with clean bandages, and we have to let our bodies do the hard work of rebuilding.  We need new skin, new nerves, new connections to grow under our scabs.  And we have to wait, to allow the healing process to complete itself.  Only then can our scabs fall off, our bandages be removed, our bodies and hearts be free to live fully.  Not as pristine as the original, but whole as our scars entwine us and help us to move again.

http://desertstream.org/living-waters/

Our Scars

One night, we were at church talking with some friends long after the service was over.  Somehow we began talking about surgeries, and my husband pulled up his shirt.  Chris was born premature, with a host of issues going on inside him, and very early in his life he was cut open from his neck to his belly button.  A scar is there to this day.  Chris and I had only been married a year, maybe two? and I was embarrassed.  I didn't want people to see his scar, that jagged pale white line that divides his torso into two hemispheres.  But Chris feels no shame at his appearance.

I have scars too.  The little one on my forehead from when I was a child and running through the house with my sister; our fun ended when I fell and split my head open on a heating grate.  On my calf is an indentation; I had a mother and older sister who shaved their legs, so when I was 8, I decided to be a grown up lady too, and ended up removing quite a bit of skin along with the hair.  The scar of which I'm most proud is across my abdomen, and it is the result of the two c-sections that brought my oldest boys into the world.  It's funny though, how much I feared that scar, how it seemed that any chance at achieving physical perfection was ruined as the scalpel opened me up.  (I think the undignified way we bring our children into this world is only a taste of the many indignities a mother must experience while raising them.)  My scars tell a story, about who I was, who I wanted to be, and who I became.

Then there are the other scars, the invisible ones.  We have a choice, to keep them hidden or to show them off.  About three years ago, we began attending a church called LoveCanton, and I noticed there is quite a bit of scar showing.  The people who stand up to preach have no fear or shame about their scars; they put them on display.  And it's shown me something about who Jesus is.  Have you ever seen an image of Jesus with his hands clasped behind his back?  Do artists ever render him in a position where his wrists are hidden?  Instead, we depict him with arms extended, open for all to come close and bear witness to his scars.  I have a question for those of you who preach and teach:  how often do you stand at your pulpit and tell people what to do with their sin, the hurt they inflict on other people?  And how many times have you preached about what to do with the wounds that other people give us?  Do you spend each week telling people to repent but forget to tell them to take off their shame?

Recently, our founding pastor said, "Our scars give us credibility."  It made me think.  Why is that?  Why do our jagged, bumpy parts give us an authority that a perfect, unblemished past can't?  I think it's this: our scars show that we've been wounded; they announce to the world that we have experienced.  But it's not because we walk around gushing blood that makes us remarkable...it's that we have healed.  When I talk to other women about my c-section, their first question is always: "What's the recovery like?  How soon can you walk, eat solids, use the stairs, drive a car?"  They want to know from someone who has been through it just what to expect after the surgery is over.  When your heart is broken, when your body is aching, you don't want to hear from the person who's never been there.  You want to see the scars, and know that there is something beyond the pain. 

And lucky for us that we worship one who has endured the pain, who bled for each of us.  It's the same, whether you have been hurt or done the hurting...you bring it to the cross.  We lay down our weighted vests of shame at the scarred feet, we pass our burdened hearts to his wounded hands.  Once we have removed the darkness, only our scars remain, to bear witness to our resurrection.