Scars Are Ugly Yet They Are Also Beautiful! …Hello Hump Day readers. Al and I were up in Colorado last week and it was so beautiful. The trees, birds, deer, the howling of a wolf, and the many colors of flowers and leaves, some still vibrant, others getting ready to ‘go-to-bed’ until spring. One of the things that captured me was stumps – all kinds of stumps. Now there is where my mind said to myself “look at those scarred stumps, aren’t they beautiful?” I thought about it and then said “yes!”

It sounds crazy to think a scar can be beautiful but those scars can also be the story of our lives, and the scars we carry that remind us on some of those tough days that we didn’t think we could get through it—but we did. We could write a novel on our scars because we all have them. Some we can see, some are buried from the inside-out.

Here’s my stump story: I have one on my right arm that reminds me to “not do something my mother told me not to do. On one of those days I chose to “do it” to find out what our Christmas gifts would be. When I got off the ladder I turned to the right, forgetting the wood stove was on. I pasted my arm on that hot stove and almost fainted. My sister, Emmy, said “that’s bad”—I agreed. I was already a junior in the American Red Cross first aid training, so I knew what to do: sit in the tub with water up to my neck and let the coolness calm me. When my mom got home I told her what I did, she smiled knowing we would have tried, but was concerned about the burn. It was 3rd degree and took me more than 8 years to heal it.

At 71 years old, the scar is not very visible but it is to me because decades later, when I look at that scar I don’t remember the pain. I remember my mom’s gentle hands caring for me and her words “be brave, it will heal.” She was right, it did. Our scars tell our stories: some with the pain but more, the love. Not of the injury but of the healing. Not of what went wrong as I was doing something I shouldn’t have, but of what went right in the aftermath.

Scars remind me of Jesus—not that he was a youngster trying to find a Christmas present, but the perfect man who bore the scarred-marks of crucifixion all for us. I call his story the most beautiful story ever told—the story of love that conquered death, of sacrifice that brought salvation, of wounds that brought healing for you and me.

The Prophet Isaiah says it this way [53:5 CSB] “But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds.”

Our scars don’t have to be sources of shame. They can be testimonies of survival. They can be reminders of God’s faithfulness. They can be proof that we made it through what we thought was going to destroy us.

It’s like those stumps, at one time they were majestic trees and through many years of wind, snow, ice, and disease, they came down but not all of it was gone. The mighty stump is still on the ground with roots going down into the fertile soil. And it is often housing for critters to be warm in the winter, and have stashes to put their food in! Each scar on that stump has its story, just as we do.

So think about this: what scars in your life can become testimonies of God’s faithfulness and healing? Can you see your wounds as sources of healing for others as well? Sit down on that stump and think it through, then you’ll find that those scars are the beautiful healing of God’s love for you! AMEN.