Show Me Your Scars
Every summer I indulge myself in a Jaws marathon. I’m the only one in my house who finds the Jaws trilogy entertaining so on the rare occasion I find myself alone in the house on a hot, summer day, I pull out the ice cream and settle in to enjoy hours of suspenseful music, blood-curdling screams and the most inauthentic looking shark ever to grace the movie screen.
If you’re familiar with the original film, you’ll remember the scene in which Chief Brody, Quint, and Matt Hooper, three wildly different men on a shared quest to kill a shark, are sitting around the table in the boat's hull, showing off their scars (seen here). They lift their shirts, roll up their pant legs, and prop limbs on the table. The men regale each other with tales of accidents, mishaps, and adventures gone wrong, each resulting in a blemish, a disfigurement, a battle wound of some sort. They point and gesticulate, proudly one-upping one another as if their scars and how they earned them make them worthy of being a man.
I don’t know many women who would engage in this sort of boastful behavior. You won’t find us huddling around a table saying, “Show me your scars.” Most women I know make concerted efforts to cover their scars, quietly hiding them behind clothing, makeup, or tattoos. We see our scars as ugly, no matter how hard-earned. Great strength was required to endure whatever pain created them, but instead of boasting, we feel shame at the imperfections we now bear.
Perhaps you understand this as well as I do. Maybe you’ve been reluctant to show yourself in public for fear someone will notice your scars, or even worse, ask how you got them. Sometimes we just can’t face the memory of our affliction; the cancer we fought, the labor and delivery we agonized through, the traumatic accident we miraculously survived. Revisiting our pain can be triggering, so we choose to hide our wounds from the world.
Maybe you don’t have many physical scars to speak of, but like many of us, you have emotional scars. For years I hid mine behind thick skin. I avoided the memories, tugging my sleeves around my hands, muttering “I’d rather not talk about it.” Rather than recall past pain, I chose to avoid it. What good would it do anyway? I’d think. What’s done is done. But God is never done. He began a good work in me, and He began a good work in you, and He will continue to work in us until the day Jesus Christ returns (Philippians 1:6). He has a purpose for your past pain.
My husband and I have been serving in church ministry for nearly twenty years, and we often joke that we’ve seen it all (at least, we hope we have). Not much surprises us anymore because we’ve lived through enough to know the church is filled with broken, sinful people just like us. Imperfection is expected. The scars we bear as a result of the hurt inflicted by people in the church are many (you can read more about it here), and for so long, we allowed our newly acquired emotional baggage to weigh us down. We felt uncomfortable sharing our past ministry experiences. We were certain dredging up the past would help no one. We were sure it was just healthier to move on and forget, and for a time that may been true. While our wounds were still fresh, we needed space to let them mend. Picking at the scabs would have only harmed us further and delayed our healing. But once our injuries scarred over, God introduced us to others who had been through the battle too.
Sitting across the table from friends who bore similar scars afforded us fresh ministry opportunities. We rolled up our sleeves, revealed our wounds and, in doing so we found we were not alone. We shared our hard-earned lessons. We offered hope and encouragement. We revealed a way forward, a way to heal without growing bitter. God had shown us how so that we could show others. Over the years we have come alongside countless ministry couples, pastors, and church leaders. We’ve circled up and shown off our scars, finding there is comfort to be found in shared trauma. We’ve marveled at how God continues to use our journey, tumultuous as it’s been, to offer a hand to those still making the harrowing trip.
Three years after we married my husband and I began the process of adopting a child. Once all the paperwork was filed and the home study was complete, we anxiously waited to be matched with a birth mother. When it finally happened, our hearts were all in. I went to every doctor’s appointment, I decorated the nursery, and I attended my baby showers. Six weeks before her due date, the birth mother changed her mind. It’s been fourteen years but I haven’t forgotten what that felt like. My spirit was crushed. I was utterly brokenhearted. Sadly it was just the first of six failed adoption attempts over the following year. The emotional scars I incurred then are by far the deepest, “ugliest” scars I bear. For a long time, I couldn’t answer questions about our adoption journey without choking back tears. I didn’t want to revisit the loss; I only wanted to embrace the joy that followed. Until God introduced me to other women still waiting to be called “Mama.”
I have had the privilege of sitting knee-to-knee with friends and family desperate for hope as they wait for a child. I’ve shared my story a hundred times over. It never gets easier, but each time I’m reminded of the lessons learned in my hard-fought battle to become a mother. I can say with confidence to my fellow warriors, “God is not done. Don’t give up. He has good things in store. Wait and see.” I show off my scars to prove that healing is coming, and that hope is not lost. My scars are evidence of the One who gives the childless woman a family, making her a happy mother (Psalm 113:9).
For much of my young adult life, I struggled with self-confidence, comparison, with negative self-talk. I placed my sense of self-worth in a number on the scale, in my pant size, and in the words of others. I listened to the world, which told me the shape of my body determined my beauty and worth. I struggled to listen to God, who as my loving Father, has always intended for me to live in freedom and confidence. The wounds inflicted on me by the world and by the lies of enemy left deep wounds. But the heart change that occurred later is where the healing happened, and those wounds are now scars, chinks in my armor, proof that God can free us from even the strongest shackles.
As God has helped me claim victory over the lies of self-doubt and self-loathing, He’s led me to help other women through their journey of healing and hard truth. It’s been an honor and a privilege to walk alongside my peers and help them see who they are through God’s eyes, not the world’s. We spend weeks diving into God’s word and digging deep into our past- revealing lies we were told or shame we’ve harbored in the dark corners of our hearts. It’s hard. But oh the transformation I’ve seen. I only had to show off my scars.
Whether our scars are physical or emotional we must stop making the mistake of associating them with weakness. We point to the marks and see moments when we were vulnerable, when we fell victim to something bigger and stronger than us. But it’s there in our weakness when God’s power works best (2 Corinthians 12:9), so we needn’t regret the circumstances that landed us on the battlefield. (The Land of Regret is a place where wounds never heal.) Why should be ashamed of the struggles we fought our way through? Are our scars not proof of God’s provision, of His healing, of His restoration of all things broken? He has brought us through so that we might get others through. This is the purpose of our past pain. So let’s hunker down in the hull of our shared ship, prop our legs and arms on the table, tug up our clothing, and say, “Show me your scars.” Let’s boast of our weaknesses. Let’s take pleasure in our hardships, persecutions, and troubles, for when we are weak, He is strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).
When Jesus returned from the grave after being buried for three days, his disciple Thomas said, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side” (John 20:25). He needed to see the scars. It wasn’t until Thomas placed his hands on the wounds of Jesus that he recognized Him as Lord and God (John 20: 28). What if our scars could do the same? What if in revealing our scars for others to see, we could show them Jesus? What if our scars could be the evidence someone needs to believe in the existence of God? Our story of past pain, of a God who heals and saves, could be what others need to hear.
Consider how your scars can help others heal. Consider coming alongside those whose wounds are still fresh, and offering them a reason to keep going. We can’t pull others toward hope if we refuse to look back. We can’t testify to what God has done if we don’t remember where we’ve been. So show me your scars and I’ll show you mine. God’s not done with us yet.