Scars

Introduction:

Welcome my friend,

Last week we used bruises and injuries as a simple analogy for how relationships can fall apart when small, sometimes barely noticeable issues are left unaddressed and eventually erupt.

More here: (https://whereweareone.beehiiv.com/p/bruises).

As a sequel to that conversation, today we’ll explore scars and how we can respond rightly when an injury leaves behind a lasting reminder.

Discussion:

A scar is the mark that remains on the spot where an injury once occurred, a visible reminder that we were hurt.

When we experience deep pain and hurt in a relationship, it can leave us scarred through unpleasant memories, constantly reminding us of everything we had to endure.

This becomes a difficult burden because, unlike physical scars that are painless like the dead skin they consist of, emotional scars can hurt just as intensely as fresh injuries as we relive a difficult experience again and again.

It's for this reason that emotional scars require healing as we refuse to let our scars keep reminding us of the very things we desperately want to forget.

■ Understanding The Significance Of Our Scars 

A scar, at its core, is simply information.

It tells us that something happened here; that an injury once existed in this exact place, and that the body or the heart had to do the work of closing it back up.

This is important to understand, because a scar and an open injury are not the same thing, even when they feel the same as in an emotional one.

The truth is, an open injury is still actively hurting us, while a scar is the record of a hurt we have already survived.

This in itself is strength, a quiet reminder that we possess the capacity to go through something difficult and still come out on the other side.

Yet, many of us don’t experience our scars this way.

We experience them as though the injury reopens every time we remember it.

Here, we’re not actually dealing with a scar anymore but an injury that we've refused to let heal.

Truth is, the real significance of our scars is that they're meant to mark the end of an injury, not the continuation of it.

So when they begin to function as a continuation, that’s a clear sign that healing was never fully completed in the first place, only postponed.

This acknowledgement sets the tone for dealing with them better moving forward.

■ Scars - What We Do With The Memory

Since our emotional scars are tightly bound to memory, we often feel we must relive them in order to honor what we went through.

We tell ourselves that forgetting would mean the pain didn’t matter.

Which to us, feels like a betrayal of everything we had to endure.

So we hold on.

We replay the experience, sometimes for years, keeping the wound fresh under the guise of not forgetting the things that shaped us.

Yet there’s a crucial difference between remembering something and reliving it.

When we remember, we allow ourselves to learn from what happened while standing at a safe distance from it.

When we relive it, however, we remain seated inside the moment itself, as though it were still happening right now…

As though we're still that hurt version of ourselves with no say in the matter.

…but we’re not.

We have grown; we're no longer the same person.

Many times, we’re no longer in a position where the same hurt could reach anymore.

Which makes continually dwelling on it an unnecessary form of self torture.

The truth is, the memory of the injury isn’t the enemy.

However, it's what we choose to do with that memory that matters, because that choice is what determines whether we heal or continue to hurt for far longer.

■ Scars - The Danger Of Reopening What Has Healed

There’s a subtle form of self harm that happens when we pick at a scar until it starts bleeding again.

We do this emotionally far more often than we notice.

We drag old wounds into fresh arguments.

We judge every new relationship by the one that once broke us.

We expect the worst from people simply because someone in our past gave us a reason to.

Yet every time we do this, we aren’t actually protecting ourselves from future pain.

We’re simply ensuring the old wound never gets the chance to fully heal.

This takes honesty to admit, because it rarely feels like self harm at that moment.

It feels like caution, hard earned wisdom even.

Yet, caution that blocks healing isn't wisdom.

It’s just an old injury wearing the mask of vigilance.

■ Scars - Choosing What The Mark Means

We didn’t choose the wound.

Most of us never asked for the pain we endured, nor for the marks it left behind.

Yet we do have a choice in what those marks will mean from now on.

This is where our power lies.

A scar can mean, “I am forever vulnerable here, and this is the part of me that will always be breakable."

Or it can mean,

“This is the part of me that has already proven it can survive something difficult, and come back from it.”

The same scar.

Two completely different stories built upon it.

The truth is, the mark itself is silent.

It has no voice of its own.

It doesn’t dictate how it must be remembered.

We are the ones who assign its meaning, often unconsciously, through the stories we keep telling ourselves.

So why not dwell on the happy ending?

■ Scars - The Humility To Let Others See Them

There’s a strong temptation to hide our scars completely and only show the uninjured parts of ourselves.

This is self deceit.

Here, we act as if true healing means erasing every trace of what we’ve been through.

Yet realistically, it’s the opposite of what we actually need.

Truth is, a hidden scar rarely stays healed.

It usually becomes a secret we have to manage instead of a story we’ve made peace with.

This shouldn't be, we can own our scars, using it to good effect.

Indeed, there's real humility in allowing others see the marks we carry, not as a plea for pity, but as an honest acknowledgment of where we’ve been.

This honesty becomes a quiet gift because someone else, still bleeding from a similar injury, can find hope simply by seeing that we made it through ours.

■ Grace - Letting God Redefine The Mark

As believers, we are not called to erase the wounds we’ve carried, nor are we required to feel shame over the marks they left behind.

What we are called to do is bring those wounds to the One who can truly redefine what they mean.

God has never asked us to forget what happened in order to be made whole.

He simply asks us to stop letting the wound have the final word over our identity.

What was intended to break us, He can transform into a testimony.

What was meant to convince us we were unlovable, He can turn into powerful proof of how deeply and faithfully He loves.

This doesn’t happen by chance, and it seldom happens quickly.

It happens when we stop hiding our scars from Him and instead allow Him to hold them with us; trusting Him to write their meaning instead of defining them ourselves out of fear, shame, or lingering pain.

Summary:

A scar is proof that an injury once existed.

Yet it doesn’t mean the injury should continue to hurt us.

We didn’t get to choose most of what left their marks on us.

…but we do get to choose whether those marks stand as evidence of what broke us, or as evidence of what we survived.

Let today be the day we decide.

See you next week.

Master Apprentice 🇳🇬 

www.x.com/truekingmaker