SCARS

 

Look at your hands.  Do you have a scar or two?  Maybe they are somewhere else on your body due to a fall or cut, or perhaps a surgery.  You have them and I have them - scars on our bodies and, yes, scars in our hearts and souls.

Both the visible and invisible scars each tell a story.  There is one on my right hand - a cut from a paring knife while canning pears.  There’s one in my chest and another in my left hip from surgeries. When I see the scar, I relive the event to some extent.

At age 7 I cheated death as I fell some distance face-first onto loose pavement and gravel.  It took many years and doctors for the physical scars to heal.  Sadly, my youthful schoolmates found them “fun” to make fun of.  Almost 60 years later the physical and emotional scars are mostly not visible, but sometimes, strangely, they are still noticeable . . . . . just to me.

There are other scars . . .  that I carry inside - emotional and spiritual scars from other painful encounters and experiences- scars hidden from the world.  You too, perhaps, have your physical, emotional and spiritual scars.  Some of them, though old, are still tender and sore.  They either haven't healed completely, or perhaps, there is something that won't let them heal.  You have your scars and I have mine.  BUT, here’s the thing,  WE ..... ALL ....HAVE ....SCARS.

Now, let me tell you a true story that happened some years ago.  For this story I am indebted to Po Bronson’s book, “Why Do I Love These People?”  (Random House, 2005).   Recently, I also heard and was reminded of this story as it was retold by a great preacher, Chuck Swindoll.  The following follows both their narratives.

It is a true story about a stately, even majestic, old elm tree. The tree was planted in the early 1900’s on a farm near Beulah, Michigan. It grew to be large and, even today, it is some 60 feet across the crown. Its trunk is about 12 feet around. But what makes this tree unique is a scar that encircles the tree.



It seems that in the 1950s the family that owned the farm kept a bull chained to the tree. The bull would work its way round and round the tree. The heavy iron chain scraped a trench in the bark about three feet off the ground. The trench deepened over the years threatening to kill the tree.

Although damaged severely, the tree, strangely, did not die.
After some years the family sold the farm and took their bull. They cut the chain, leaving the loop embedded in the trunk and one link hanging down.

The elm continued to grow and bark slowly covered parts of the rusting chain that strangled it. The deep gash around the trunk became an ugly scar.

Then one year an agricultural catastrophe struck Michigan -- in the form of Dutch Elm Disease.  A path of dying trees spread across vast areas of countryside. Most elm trees in the vicinity of the farm became infected and died. But that one noble elm remained untouched while all around it, elm trees died.

Amazingly, it had survived two hardships. First, it was not killed by the bull's chain years earlier, and this time it out-lasted the deadly fungus that killed the elm trees around it.  Then one day, after several years, scientists from Michigan State University came out to study the tree. They looked closely at the chain necklace buried deep in the scar. After some research, these experts reported that the chain itself actually saved the elm's life.

Here’s what they said happened: The tree absorbed so much iron from the chain left to rust around its trunk that it became immune to the fungus.  What certainly could have killed the tree actually made it stronger and more resilient. The iron in the rusty chain that left a scar – had saved its life.

There is much to learn from this tree, which still lives in Michigan today. First, I survived my wounds and, in most cases, they left me stronger.  Most of us have been hurt or wounded, or bruised or scarred in some way. Other wounds await us in the future as we work out our salvation in a sometimes dangerous and ever-darkening world. 

However, it is not the circumstance, situation, or event that causes wounds that make a difference; it is our reaction or attitude to it, which makes the difference. It is not the tribulation that counts, but the degree to which we apply the healing balm of Jesus’s Atonement that really counts.

When we feel the pain of our own scars, it may be helpful to ask ourselves, “Are my wounds deeper than Christ’s wounds? Are my scars greater than His scars? Is my suffering greater than His suffering?”  Isaiah’s offers these words of comfort, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and…. With…. his stripes…. we are healed." 

God would have us put our scars and afflictions, those caused by us or inflicted upon us by someone else, on the altar of Christ’s Atonement.  Therefore, let's put our abuse, our betrayals, our failings, our forsaken love, or our anguish over wayward children, - let’s put our sins of commission and sins of omission – sins of every kind, let’s put all of our failed hopes, and dreams and aspirations on His atoning alter this day.  Let us put our sicknesses, our diseases and aches and pains on that alter, and allow His Atonement to bind them up, to soothe them, and let His Atonement heal them.

Today could be the last day of a wounded life, and the first day of a renewed covenant life.  Christ is the Redeemer and Healer of all of our wounds and scars, all our crosses and all our losses - FOR HE HAS RISEN and in Him is life everlasting for you and me. 

 

Larry Doyle Crenshaw