I remember sitting in a church service years ago when I was at a time in my life when God was healing and restoring my brokenness after many years of pain, and they sang a song thanking God for the sc ars that I bear. I was like what? How can I be thankful for the pain I felt during my childhood from a family friend? How can I be thankful for where my marriage was at the time? How can I be thankful for the many wrong choices that I have made in life? The song also says thank you for the wilderness, where I learned to thirst for your presence and if I had never known that place, how could I have known Him better? And thankful for the scars because they show that He is my healer. How could I have seen His strength, if I never knew my weakness?
So how could I disagree to say thank you to God for those scars?!
Just like on the outside of our bodies, we also have scars on the inside. I don’t know about you, but I have baggage! I have had issues! Big ones! I wish I didn’t! I wish I could say that I was born into a Christian family, became a Christian and my path was smooth sailing. But we live in a fallen world. We are all human, I have made some crap choices that have left scars, and I have had others who have made some crap choices that left me with scars. Pastor Blake Young says, “A scar is healing that has left a mark resulting in the damaged area being stronger than it was before". He also believes that we seem to live in a culture where we are trying to hide scars as they leave a negative connotation. We have a fear of telling our story as we think people won’t accept us. And unfortunately, sadly, that can be so very true. How quickly do people forget how far they once fell and how quickly they forget how much God did for them. We live in fear of our stories because of distrust, doubts, shame and guilt.
But we know, “There is NO condemnation for those who love Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)
Pastor Blake says fear leaves it a wound and robs you of the beauty of your battle scars. We need to share our scars to let people see that God loves us! If we don’t we could be ripping people off to see who Jesus is. Although at times, my scars can still bear some pain, I am so grateful for them because of who I am today.
This world needs some people that have gone through some stuff and who have experienced God’s healing. Your scars can be your greatest weapon because people can see what you’ve gone through and see who you are now. Why did Jesus choose to keep his scars? He rose from the dead, surely filling in some holes wouldn’t be such a big deal from the creator of the universe. He was perfect, yet he was scared. Thomas wouldn’t have believed unless he had seen the scars. (John 20:27). Jesus allowed him to examine his scars.
Pastor Blake Young inspires us to think about the battlefield. Who do you want to follow into battle? I want to follow someone who has some battle scars, showing they have been through something and I want to know that I too can get through it. I think we would all agree with that. We are so busy hiding our scars and that’s the very thing that can bring freedom to other people. It can give people courage to say, ‘Wow you did that? You experienced that? God brought you out of that? WOW!’ Not until people see our holes do they believe.
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