On my left knee are two pea sized scars that I have from when I tore my ACL in high school trying to be cool as I did a lap up in gym class. It wasn’t so cool when the whole school saw me lying in pain on the gymnasium floor. On my right wrist is a scar that I have from when I tried to be a cool Auntie and teach my niece to roller skate. I definitely did not win the Cool Auntie of the Year award but I did create a memorable moment.
Most days I don’t give any of these scars a second thought, but every once in a while people will see them and ask me about them. I have no problem sharing the stories of how they came to be because the truth is these hurts are healed.
However there are hurts on my heart that are invisible to the human eye and have gone untreated for many years, maybe even decades. Maybe you have them too. Hurts from bad choices you have made. Hurts from people who have rejected you, spoken unkind words to you, or betrayed you. Hurts from difficult experiences in life that have created deep wounds inside of you.
These are the hurts we don’t talk about because they are not healed, they are still open wounds. Maybe you have tried to ignore them, numb them or distance yourself from them, but God wants to heal them. He wants us to totally surrender our pain, our hurts, our heartaches and let His love, mercy and forgiveness be the remedy our wounds need to heal and finally become scars.
He wants to heal us because through healing we are set free from shame, guilt, sorrow, regret, doubt, etc. But the story doesn’t end there. Once we have healed, we still have our scars and God wants us to show our scars. That doesn’t mean you have to plaster them on a billboard sign or post them on Facebook, but rather that might mean sharing your scar story in a conversation or in a note or in a blog post (if you are me.) God uses our scar stories to bring heart healing to others.
For example, this past year I healed my hurt of always feeling like the girl on the outside looking in and never being good enough to be invited to the party. It’s surprising how many others have felt that way and so when I share my scar story they relate and feel like “me too!” And then together we can talk about what it means to be invited as is and to see rejection as a gift because God is helping us to find the right tribe, the right guy and the right opportunities and protecting us from the unhealthy people, jobs and situations. Now don’t get me wrong rejection still stings, but it doesn’t have a hold on me like it use to. I can process it much faster and find the bright side instead of letting it take me to the dark side.
As you take leap of faith in life you will get the opportunity to reflect on the memories, words and experiences that have haunted and hurt your soul. The reason I say “you will” is because as you step out of your comfort zone and into the faith zone God tells us that we will go through deep waters, we will go through rivers of difficulty and we will walk through fire (Isaiah 43:20) and as you go through this challenges the wounds that have not healed will start to resurface. Yet you can have hope, because in that same verse God promises He will be right by our side and we will not drown or burn up, rather we will be healed. All we need to do is continuously believe which is one of the key elements to a leap of faith.
Don’t give in to the fear. Instead be willing to go through the processing of unpacking those hurts whether through coaching or counseling in order to understand how they have impacted your thoughts, your feelings and your actions. This can be painful and tears may overflow, but in the end your breakdown can lead to your breakthrough.
Today I encourage you to think of a hurt that has haunted your soul. The one that has kept you from believing that you are not good enough, loved, wanted, worthy and/or talented. Now surrender it to God in prayer and invite Him to come in to heal your hurt and turn it into a scar so that it no longer has power over you and that God can then use for good.
Here is Matthew West’s song “Mended” may it encourage you that even though “you see the scars from when you fell, God sees the stories they will tell” and that “when you see broken beyond repair, God sees healing beyond belief.” May today be the day you start to heal your hurts and let your scars show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Otg-5p7qug
