Scars Are Beautiful

I was sitting in the bottom of my ocean, blearly cupping my coffee when the message from a sister came through.

The words flowed through me like a gentle lighting bolt, my heart stopping and I knew who this blog would be dedicated to.

Who it was meant for.

You will not know, but she knows.

My sister knows.

My sister who is suffering, waking in pain every morning, suffering to sleep every night.

Her life does not stop to accommodate the pain. Inexorably it pushes on.

Children needing to be fed.

Husband kissed before he goes to work. Laundry done. Small heads stuffed with fresh knowledge, and food that must be made to nourish the many little bodies in her care.

She feels broken and weak.

Why must this happen to her? Why can’t the suffering be eased? Doctors ‘helplessly’ try to help. She is willing to try anything and has already spent more money that she imagined in trying to find anything that eases the awful never ending pain.

I stand by, helplessly aching for her as she confesses she is in the tub weeping. I stand by twisting my hands when her child wakes up throwing up. I am too far away, too human to help.

My ‘five’ness’ researches madly, into the night, My eyes are burning from the harsh glare of the screen, and momentarily I do not blink as sharp tears push from behind my eyes. As if me experiencing a little discomfort could ease hers.

I grit my teeth when her kindness is taken for granted. When her soft pure heart is trod upon.

I just don’t know why.

Or what?

“God, you know, you are here, look at her suffering. Please ease it!” I beg.

'“I am with her” comes the stillness in my heart. “I care for her a thousand times more than you do”.

I think of my own suffering through life.

So many or our children living in heaven.

Church splits, anger, pain.

How long it took me to learn to press into the heart ache and pain, the sleepless nights and on through to the heart of the Father, instead of pulling back hard and merely surviving it, often with vices that go from being a momentary crutch to gripping addiction.

I learned to press in. Push forward. Give healing and forgiveness time. I learned its ok to be very sick and have nothing physical to offer. My worth is in him. My salvation and my entire truth is found in him, until nothing I have is worthy of cherishing.

Then freedom, victory and joy!

I did not know that I was passing through the cross. That the scar that would be left would be so deep, so sharp, so BIG that I would never again be the same.

My heart lifts as I remember. I snap my hair band over my wrist and with joy filling me from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, I place her in his hands, where she is safe.

Where you are safe, my friend. Yes, you. The one reading this.

The only place you are safe.

You are too human, too weak, too easily broken to hold life together. To heal yourself. To save your children. To get everything right. The nights will still be sleepless, the day still filled with challenges that threaten to overwhelm you.

Your humanity has nothing to offer. Your best efforts are filthy rags.

Throw them down into the dirt where they belong. Look away from the rags of perfection, and turn your eyes up to Jesus who is the author and finisher of your faith. Truly what he has started, he is finishing, NOW, as I type. As his spirit floods over me and I cannot contain the emotion coursing through me, he is doing the good work.

He is also finishing your faith. Your tapestry on the topside is stunning, with a perfect scarlet thread running through it. You can only see the bottom side where the knots and the thread ends are. Sisters, stop fighting him every time the needle comes down from the top. Stop the bitterness and complaining to other people who do not seem to have it as bad as you do. Stop the offense and triggers.

Just stop it!

Press in! Open your arms and run into the fray, knowing the one you serve has already overcome the world and has set you free from striving against flesh and blood.

You can wait with breathless anticipation as he weaves above you, because what he is doing will take your breath away. It will reach far and wide and bring him tremendous honor and glory through you. If you allow it.

When you cannot sleep. Praise him!

When you cannot eat. Praise him!

When you are so sick with morning sickness that your stomach bile melts the tupperware container you are throwing up in, Praise him!

When your baby spills the spaghetti and your husband wakes up tired, Praise him!

When your spirit is so weak, your body so hurting that you just lay there, limp, like a noodle thats been over cooked, and tears seep out of your eyes. That is when he is the strongest. Because he needs you to see his strength and your weakness. He needs you to realize where your worth is.

Our Father is a jealous and loving father who brings his people to the cross over and over. Because he knows what the cross has to offer.

What we see in the cross is death, what he sees is life!

I want to see like Jesus does. You want to see like Jesus does. It pours out of your heart and down the outside of your jostled cup like no one I’ve ever seen it happen with like this before.

And so as you wait for your healing. Let me sit here for a moment, in the dust beside you and open this manila envelope the Lord sent to me, for you.

He sent it to me, for you so surely, that when I started reading this little missive from a sister who hears when the Father speaks, that my heart momentarily stopped and I caught my breath.

“Give this to her, but not just in a Whatsapp” He said. “Wrap it up in a present, and give it to her in a way that she knows how dearly she is loved”.

And so here it is with my prayer of blessing.

“If the Lord does not give us a fundamental blow, we will remain the same. Sometimes we fall and suffer pain, but this pain lasts only a couple of days or a few months.

“However, if we are broken by God in a fundamental way, and if we are broken deeply enough, we will not suffer for a few days or a few months, but we will have a scar on our entire life.

“If some day the Lord has mercy on us and gives us a severe blow, our self will never rise again, and the scar will remain on us forever. We can touch the nail scars in the resurrected Lord’s hands and the wounds in His side. Today scars will be found on those who know the Lord and who experience the Lord as their personal resurrection as well.

“These scars will not pass away, and these scars will strip them if their boasting; they will not dare to be self-confident, self-assured, or boastful of their own strength.

“If there is a mark of death on us, that mark will be a proof that we know resurrection. Those who know the cross know resurrection. Resurrection is what remains after passing through the cross.

“May the Lord grant us the true knowledge of Christ as our resurrection.”

By Watchman Nee

PS. Your scars mean something. They are precious, beautiful and valuable.