Scars

Several years ago, when my daughter was still practically a baby, she began to have problems with her ears; she had infection after infection. This led to the inevitable need for ear tubes, which seemed to help. But then, after quite a bit of time had passed, she began to have problems with her right ear again and we had to take her back to the doctor to see what the next step would be. They found that when the tube on the right side came out, it had left a hole that would not heal. The doctor checked and rechecked over many months, and finally told us that the hole was not going to heal on its
own. Also, with her eardrum not fully intact and with the amount of scar tissue that was beginning to build up, her hearing was decreasing in that ear. She had so much discomfort, and often had a bad smell from persistent infection in that ear that was embarrassing to her as well.

In order to fix the problem, the doctor was going to have to completely open up the skin behind her ear, cut a bit of the muscle out, and use it to repair the tympanic membrane. Her ear was cut all the way from the top to the bottom, and had to have multiple stitches to repair it. But when it was all said and done, it was worth it. The patch of her eardrum worked perfectly, and in the process they found a deeper problem inside her ear that needed to be addressed during surgery before it caused severe problems, so it was completely fixed. My daughter had a lot of pain, but her hearing is better now in that ear and it doesn't cause problems anymore as a result of infection.

Her scar is not very noticeable. It's behind her ear, so I only see it when I pull her hair back, and that's because I'm brushing her hair. It doesn't cause her any pain. But when I do see that scar, I'm reminded of what she had to go through in order to get her healing.

No matter who you are or what you have been through, we ALL have scars. I would venture to say that not one of us is perfect, not one of us has gone through this life unscathed by sin, by hurt, by disappointment, or by failure. We all have felt the deep wounds, the gashes, that those things can leave. They are wounds that are not necessarily visible to the naked eye; you might not see your neighbor walking by with the evidence of hurt that has been inflicted on them by circumstance or by their own wrong choices. As you pass me in the store, you might not see the wounds that I have carried from past failures. These kinds of wounds are often emotional or spiritual, and don't always show on the surface.

But none of us can hide the truth from God. None of us can dress up our wounds and cover them completely because the eyes of the Lord see through to our heart. My daughter's ear would not heal itself, and we aren't able to heal ourselves without Him. He can see the deepest, darkest, most broken places inside of us, and He longs to heal those places. Just like in my daughter's ear, they found the deeper problem when they went in for surgery; when we allow God to go into those deep places inside of us, He can heal the root of the problem, and make us whole again. We will most likely bear a scar from what we have been through, but the scar isn't something that causes pain. The scar is a reminder for us, a reminder of how far He has brought us, a reminder that we don't want to go back to the place that caused us such pain before, and a reminder that we are never too messed up that He can't reach down and restore us. Scars are not something ugly that we should be ashamed of, but rather, a badge - the testimony of an overcomer - that shows His grace in our lives, His mercy, and His love towards us.