Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Our SCARS Make Us More BEAUTIFUL

Our dog who thinks she is a cat ( tiger ), lounging on my little boy's lap

I was shipping some packages the other day at my local UPS store, when in walked in one of my son's friend's mom . She is a very pretty lady, slender, gentle demeanor, and I usually only see her with her sunglasses on. Today she reached over took them off and was talking to me about the upcoming baseball team.
Then I noticed...
She had a scar , right to the side of her eye , very evident , but what was fascinating to me, is it made her MORE attractive,
Beautiful.
I know I just kept staring at her , smiling inside at her beauty.

I have thought about that experience alot since then, how can a scar make someone ' more ' attractive ? How is that possible ? I pondered ( one of my biggest faults ), considered ( another fault ), and then prayed about it ( one of my strengths ). Nothing hit me immediately , until slowly , when I remembered her scar , I then thought of mine.
We all have scars, some are visible, or hidden , or internal. My outward scars are a nice chicken-pox scar on my forehead , a small faint scar on my inner thigh where when I was about 4-5 years old I played leap-frog with a fire-hydrant...and did not clear it. Got stitches for that one.
I am fortunate I do not have many scars from all my pregnancies ( 4 ), as that can typically scar women with evidence of their children in the womb , outwardly ,  for life.
I have a nice scar on my shin from tripping over a 70 lb. barrel of caulking compound my husband had in the wrong place , when I was rushing to get a load of laundry done one day. He got in trouble for that one.
Then I have internal scars, deep scars from situations, relationships, people that I trusted letting me down...and then I realize I have inflicted deep scars in return or randomly with acts of selfishness , decisions based on feelings alone, or additional rationalizations of autonomy .
So we can create scarred hearts in others , most of those can be visible through the eyes of the hurt.


Our outward scars usually fade with time, some never go away , and we learn to live with them or be self-conscious of them...forever.
Our inward scars are results of our own weaknesses or someone else's weaknesses...or more accurately sin. Our weaknesses are NOT our scars. The scars are the results or our weaknesses, addictions, urges, sins.
Scars are evidence of our humanity, our imperfection , our realness. They teach us about pain, they teach us that we can survive , they teach us that we are still beautiful,
because they teach us that we need God.
He is the salve for our hearts , our relationships, He sees our scars as marks of being alive...and still surviving.
He knows we are but dust .


Our scars reveal our vulnerability , they reveal a ' touch ' from life, usually a painful touch. They do make us more ' relate-able " , more real.
Less cool, more REAL.
Much more attractive.
Scars are also a bridge between two people that is a connecting bridge.
That bridge is made of empathy, and empathy is a vital part of love.
Being able to know that another person is NOT perfect, just like we are not.
That is my surmise on the beauty of a scar.

Remember God sees the heart, the inner man , bless you,
Gina


But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7

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