Scars are an amazing thing.  Scars show that we’ve lived.  Scars show that we’ve endured discomfort.  Scars show that we’ve encountered pain.  Yet scars don’t go away.  They’re always there to remind of us the pain we once experienced.

Did you know you can have your scars removed?  There are places you can go to that will surgically remove or at least “minimize” the appearance of the scar.  Go to WebMD and you’ll find you can buy creams and ointments to apply to your skin to make the scar less visible.  Some are over-the-counter and some are prescription only to be provided by a physician.  Surgical options are there.  Even injections for scars that somehow “stick out”.  Their advice is if your scar “impairs you in any way, you may be able to get coverage from your health insurer.”

The scars are a map of where we’ve been, but God knows the map that is our future

What if your scar is deeper.  MUCH deeper.  Not even visible on the surface.  People look at you and you look fine, everything is good. Condition…normal.  But you are scarred.  You’re been deeply hurt.  It was years ago, but that scar is still there.  There is no surgery that makes that scar go away.  It may not hurt like the day you first got that scar – in fact it wasn’t even a scar when it first happened, it’s what’s called a scab.  It bled.  Blood is life.  You were bleeding life out of you when it first happened.  Eventually the bleeding stopped.  If you’re like me, you may have picked at it because you wanted that scab to go away as fast as possible and you wanted to help it along, you wanted that gross, ugly reminder of what happened to go away and stop reminding you of what happened to you.  What REALLY happened?  Yep.  It started to bleed again.  We have to leave that stupid scab alone, and over time through the showers and the resistance to pick and scratch at it the scab finally goes away.  And what does it leave behind, a literal mark on our skin to remind us of what happened at that time.  It doesn’t bleed, it’s just a mark.  You can’t scratch it off because it’s just a part of you and it WON’T go away.  It doesn’t hurt but it’s there to always remind you of that hurt.

not all scars are physical that we can see, some are deeper inside

I have scars.  I have two scars from when I was I kid that are with me today decades later.  The first is just below my left eyebrow, I got it when I was maybe 10 years old.  I was climbing in the garage, there was something I wanted on a shelf and I fell and landed on a thing I remember being called a Jiffy Cooker.  It was a small thing you put charcoal in and once you got the charcoal lit you would crank the handle and it would pull in more air I suppose to help the fire get hotter so you could cook your food faster at a campground.  I landed on top of it and have a scar to prove it.  A scar I got earlier occurred at breakfast.  Boy do I LOVE breakfast!  My mom was cooking waffles.  I love waffles even to this day.  Well – in my excitement and anticipation of those hot and delicious golden brown waffles coming out of that big, massive device, somehow the back of my left hand touched the top of the waffle iron long enough to remove the skin there, and though it’s faint, it’s still here with me today to remind of that day so many (and I’m not telling you HOW many) years ago.

We ALL have scars, they may be in different places but we can’t escape it.  We all have them if we’ve lived a life at all.  But not all scars are physical that we can see, some are deeper inside.  Being transgender, I can’t imagine how you’ve gotten this far without having a few scars, maybe a lot of scars, and some of them very deep.  I’ve been there.  DEEP scars.  Here’s what I want you to remember.  The scars come from people.  Humans.  They may be Christians, but they are still people.  They may confuse their personal feelings (and/or lack or understanding about what it is to be transgender) with what they think GOD thinks about someone who is transgender.

The scars will always be there but you can live with the scars

DON’T focus on people, FOCUS on our Lord in Heaven.  I wasted years of my life because I couldn’t trust Christians until I realized that I was placing my trust in the wrong place, and that I needed to trust God, NOT people.  And at that point everything fell into place.  Perfect?  No.  But now my compass was pointing “north” (toward our Lord) and whatever His plan for me was well… HIS plan, not mine.

The scars you have are all a part of making you a better representation of Jesus when you encounter (and you will) someone who has been through something similar.  This seems to be a theme for me the last few days, I have to think there is someone who needs to hear this, because I would have been just as happy to go to bed before I started writing all this and wake up not thinking about any of this.  You’re out there, maybe just one.  But it’s you.  I’m praying for you.  God loves you.  He wants to heal those scabs.  The scars will always be there but you can live with the scars.  The scars are a reminder of where you’ve been and where you now are.  You’ve grown.  The scars only make you stronger because now you know what you’ve been through is now your opportunity to grow.

Our Father won’t abandon you – He LOVES you.  Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Even after His death, Christ kept his scars to show Thomas, for that’s the proof of life Thomas needed to see in order to believe. Christ LOVES you.  That’s it.  Discussion over.  The scars won’t go away.  Mine will always be with me.  Yours will always be with you.  But our Lord, our Father in Heaven will always be there for us as well.  The scars are a map of where we’ve been but God knows the map that is our future. We can rest well knowing that.
Blessings

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