When we were younger, we went through trials and hardships that left us with immense pain and oozing scars. At those moments we wondered if the pain would ever go away, if we would ever heal from the scars taking root in our hearts. And sometimes, years later, we still ask that same question. We still pray asking God to take that pain away because we're tired of not being okay, we're tired of the triggers that cause the emotions to bubble out of us uncontrollably, we're tired of not being in control of our own pain. As I reflected on the pain and the scars I see in my own heart this week, I am shocked that I still have a working heart. I've uprooted a lot of the pain that I suppressed over the years because nothing seemed to take the pain away besides shoving it under water and using all my strength to keep it there. Suppressing the pain doesn't help. Instead the pain builds. It festers inside you and feeds you lies about yourself. "I'm unworthy." "I'll be rejected.” “I'll never be good enough." The lies are like cancer to a heart. If not dealt with, those lies will destroy a person's identity. They take root in the pain we feel and become "truth" in our heart. We find ways to justify the lies so we can try to understand why the pain happened. We allow what we have done or what has been done to us to define who we are, instead of allowing what we did with the pain to define who we are.
When Jesus died on the cross, he bore every single sin of God's children. Nails were hammered through his hands and feet as he hung with a pain that we, by the grace of God, will never fully understand. And yet, Jesus knows our pain. Our speaker last week reminded us that we too often look at Jesus' last 3 years of life without actually looking at the first 30. Isn't it strange that we say that Jesus understands our pain if we don't believe the first 30 years matter? Life in Jesus' time was still extremely hard. I believe there were probably similar types of people back then - just wearing different clothes than we do. I believe there were rapists, murderers, and thieves. We say our generation is bad, but Jesus says he knows our pain. So what if those first 30 years actually made him relatable to us? What if during those years Jesus went through the same sort of pain so he could better understand us? When we lessen the pain of a lifetime into three years, we take the value of the pain away. Jesus got the ultimate pain. With that came the ultimate scars. Have you ever thought about Jesus' scars? Have you ever wondered why he didn't just heal them? I'm beginning to wonder if Jesus kept his scars to show us that we too will be keeping our scars. When we fall off our bikes and gash our knee, the scar still shows for life. Our body has healed it, but you've still got the mark to show for it. The same is true for an emotional crash. Our hearts remain scarred, but the key is to learn to live with the pain and intentionally walk through the healing. This past weekend four of my friends and I rented a car and drove up to Sequoia National Park. Nothing could have mentally prepared me for the beauty I saw. Sequoia trees are remarkable. They literally need fires in order to survive. The forest fires kill the smaller plants on the forest floor and create an ashy, nutrient rich soil for the sequoias to thrive off. However, the fire creates a giant burn scar on the tree. As time passes, the tree begins to heal its scar. It creates new layers each year that begin to form around the scar. Eventually, if the tree lives long enough, the scar will no longer be visible, but within the tree will be a hallow area created by the fire. You see what I mean? Sequoias heal from their scars, but they never go away. They learn to deal with them. The scars become an unremovable part of them. They become part of it's story. They are embraced and become a mark of resiliency. What if we took that same concept and applied it to our lives? What if we looked at our scars as valuable parts of our story and, instead of hiding them, we embraced them? We allow people into the scars to help us walk through the pain. And eventually, when we are no longer slave to it, we can close up our scar, fully acknowledging that the scar made you who you are today. And when you take that scar and use it to relate to others to help them walk through their pain just as you walked through yours, you no longer allow that scar to define you. Instead, you are defined as resilient. You are brave. You are caring. You are kind. You are strong. You are human. Your scars have value. How are you going to use them? Are you going to let your pain define you or are you going to allow what you've done with it define you?
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December 2016
AuthorTara | 22 | Gordon College '15 Categories |