Fading Scars

(I suddenly wake up in the middle of the night and I clearly saw my late brother in my dream. I missed him so, but instead of diverting my attention to what I feel this moment. I looked and searched for one of my favourite links that encouraged me. As I randomly picked among those many articles, I came across with this wonderful message... Meg)

 

by Rochelle Ritzi 

“It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.” 

I strongly dislike that statement. It may be true, and applicable in many ways, but I don’t have to like it. 

The process – wound, healing, scar. 

When I was fifteen, I worked at Bonanza Steak House in Phoenix, Arizona. It was a busy night and I flew through the double metal doors making my way to the oven with a large beat up metal tray, covered with uncooked potatoes. As I flung open the oven door, I slid the metal tray on the top rack and quickly grabbed the full tray of cooked potatoes. I was in such a hurry that I used the sweltering tray to close the heavy doors of the industrial size oven. Somehow I didn’t quite angle my left arm enough and I didn’t have the best grip with those old oven mitts, and somehow the weight of the tray pushed against my left forearm.

 

The side of that blistering pan instantaneously melted a thin strip of skin before I could drop the potatoes on the counter. I was in terrible pain and I fought the tears that stung my eyes. 
Twenty years later, I can still notice a very small remnant of that scar. Isn’t it amazing how the healing process works? The pain of yesterday is left as a visual memory for today. Our mind and body still react from the very thought of that initial moment of hurt. I can easily remember how the process of healing was worse than the initial burn itself. I wrapped my arm in a sterile bandage I found in the first aid box attached to the wall in the kitchen, did my best to swallow my pride, and I continued to work my shift. In a couple of weeks the burn had turned into a scab. That scab eventually turned into a scar. 

Isn’t it amazing how emotions emulate the physical? 

Life happens. It rains on the just and the unjust. And that same process of healing in the emotional still leads to a scar. The difference is nobody can see the scar but the one who felt the burn. And God. 

A song. A familiar face. A name. A million reminders of that scar that nobody else can see. Except the one who owns the scar. And God. 

I think about that tray of potatoes, and my lack of carefulness thereof, about two or three times a year. The scar is so small now that I actually have to look for it. I don’t think that incident comes to mind very often in the summer, unless I see a huge pan filled with baked potatoes! Spending time in the summer sun causes my skin to get a little darker, and then that scar begins to disappear. Every year it seems to disappear a little more. 

Isn’t it amazing how the physical emulates the spiritual?

 I remember receiving encouragement from my aunt during the initial stages of a “healing process,” when not even words could serve as bandages. She said, “God is making gold out of you.” 

I certainly don’t think I’m “gold.” But I think I have come a long way. I’m learning to trust more. Wait more. Love more. Let go more. I’m learning how and stop staring at the scars that He is still in the process of healing. 

Miracles happen in an instant. Healing is a process. 

The process – wound, healing, scar. 

Sometimes we see the scar and we accept that we are healed. But isn’t He faithful to complete what He has begun? Maybe there is more to the prcoess. He heals the scars just as easily as He heals the wound. 

Even scars eventually fade. Especially when we spend time in the Son.