Scars are just trophies of past victory. Of course I'm not talking about the scar on my wrist where I nearly sliced my hand off because I was being stupid with a band saw or the crease down my middle finger where I slipped and flayed myself with a box knife. I'm talking about emotional scars. I've learned in my life that life makes no sense. Period. There really is no reason or rhyme to why things happen when they happen, without consideration of the Divine. When God is removed from the equation, we are left with exactly what Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, a world that makes no sense, pointless pain, meaningless suffering, and vain existence.
We are walking through the Book of Ecclesiastes right now on Sunday mornings and it really is an interesting study. Honestly, life is a painful journey through a meaningless existence, confronted by pointless pain and endless suffering, highlighted with brief moments of levity and relief...without God, that is. When we consider our lives and subtract God from the equation, we are left with exactly what Solomon concluded, "vanity of vanities, a chasing after the wind." There is no point in life, not meaning to our suffering, no underlying plot to history, just a collection of helpless souls striving to experience the least amount of suffering possible and work our way up the socio-economic ladder until we are finally laid to rest.
The whole thing is turned upside down when you add God to the equation. Suddenly life is filled with eternal purpose and meaning, even if we don't understand it all. We will NEVER truly understand all the suffering and pain that we go through in life and ultimately, even with knowing that God is in control, we will still be disappointed at God sometimes. That isn't blasphemous, but true. If you expect life to be rainbows and roses because Jesus is your Savior, you're gonna be disappointed. If you buy into Prosperity doctrine, believing that God is some immensely wealthy benefactor just waiting to write you another check, you are going to be disappointed. If you think that life will never have pain or sorrow because of the fact that your sins have been forgiven and erased, you are going to be disappointed.
The challenge of life is to find meaning and purpose amidst the suffering. We have to understand and trust God that He knows what is going on, as the one who sees the beginning from the end, and that in His infinite love He allows us to face pain and suffering because it has a purpose and He knows the end result. We will never be delivered from all our painful experiences, Jesus wasn't. He is the Son of God, God incarnate, and He faced the most excrutiating, humiliating pain and suffering by the WILL OF GOD! If He suffered, how can we expect to not suffer? So, what do we do then?
I know for a fact that ever painful and traumatic experiences, even those that have left me scarred and wounded, serve an eternal purpose and I am different because of them. Heartache, grief, loss of loved ones, miscarriage, doubt, etc. have all, in the end, made me into a better person. My scars aren't reminders of past hurts, but they are victories of survival. I look back on my life and see those experiences and they serve a purpose in the grand scheme. I have learned endurance, total surrender, infinite love, patience (or better put in the King James, long-suffering, because suffering is rarely short), amazing grace, sweet peace, and divine comfort from the battles and trauma I have faced in life.
I struggled with self-image and suicidal depression as a child, but through that God reached out to me in the darkest moment, as I sat poised to slit my wrist, and He revealed His love to me. That pain and depth of despair enabled me to emapthize and later minister to youth who were facing the same depths I had struggled with.
When our son was born, he suffered a lung infection that had no apparent cause, with extreme hemorrhaging, spent 16 days on respirators in NICU, had to be transferred to a government run hospital (he was born overseas) where we only were allowed 10 minutes A DAY with him, my wife underwent 2 surgeries within a few weeks of each other, and he was only given 50% chance of survival for the first several days. Why? I have no idea and I still cry at times when I remember those long, painful days, but through that God enabled us to minister to parents and families that were facing the same struggle we were.
People often try to hide their scars, but a scar is a wound that has healed. It didn't end in death, but you survived. They remind us of past hurts, yes, but hurts that we survived and if we allow them to, they make us better because of it. We develop character through suffering, peace in the midst of pain. It enables us to face future trials with the understanding that we can survive, with the help of God Almighty. Without Him in our lives, we might as well throw in the towel and allow cyncism and bitterness to rule our lives. He is sovereign and in control, and while He can withhold every painful experience and trial, in His infinite mercy and maturity, He knows that what we will face will serve for good later. He knows that we can endure and, if we trust Him, we will leave the storm with a new strength and resolve we never knew we had, a memorial to look back upon and use to point others to Him. He will not stop suffering from happening all the time, but He does work through those things for either our good or for someone else.
Praise God for my scars, because they serve as reminders of His grace and as illustrations of His mercy.
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