When You Let Scars Speak

To say that recycling posters were a big deal in my grade school’s county would be a vast understatement. Each year a huge contest was held which involved your school’s standing in the community, the possibility of your poster be displayed at the county fair, blue ribbons, and of course a decent sized savings bond.
Needless to say, there was a lot at stake.

I must have submitted at least five entries but all these years later only two have stuck with me. There was the one with pictures of bell-bottom jeans, platform flip-flops, and a newsboy cap with check marks next to each followed by a giant red “X” next to a picture of an aluminum can in the grass. The caption read “Littering is SO out of style!”

The other was a glittery American flag with pictures of the only four presidents I could name at the time. “Help your land, put it in the can” swept across the top next to a giant dumpster. Patriotic. Classy. Catchy, I thought.
This is probably going to come as a shock to you, but I didn’t win. Not once.

Nestled into the beautiful downtown of Greenville, SC there is a little shop called Liz Daly. You walk in and your jaw drops. Along the walls stand shelves featuring rings made from old scrabble pieces, lampshades formed with Starbucks cards, and worn books revamped into handbags.

Time after time I find myself at the register paying for this “upcycled” goodness. Trash turned into treasure. In half an hour of shopping I am taught more about redemption than all my many semesters of Bible classes combined.

Recently I stumbled upon a Hebrew name for God which translates “The God Who Wastes Nothing”. That concept completely floors me. Nothing? This life’s scars flash through my mind like a slideshow. For a moment my greatest pain and my greatest shame argue over which is entitled to more disbelief.


Disabling Pain
In his book Trusting God, Jerry Bridges writes “God never wastes pain.” A bold statement. One I would have a hard time selling to a 15 year old girl stripped of identity and transported to a foreign country where she is expected to immediately adapt and thrive. A concept that would seem absurd to whisper to her as she cries into her pillow late at night and prays because she is lonely, and uncertain, and very afraid. I can’t imagine her finding solace in these words when she’s smiling and lying about how happy she is all the while battling an enemy who has her on the verge of taking her own life.


At fifteen when life hurt most, that wouldn’t have made much sense. But six years later, I can finally see purpose behind the pain. The enemy said I was worthless trash to be discarded, and yet I have witnessed God turn every one of my hurts into beauty.
 
Debilitating Shame
A few weeks ago, a close friend of mine shared a burden for a man close to salvation. He had hesitated only when overcome by shame over the sins of his past. My heart hurt for this man I had never met. I know what it is to struggle with what psychologist Ed Welch calls “debilitating shame.” Profound guilt over mistakes made that limits, hinders, and ultimately disqualifies.


I distinctly remember sitting with my younger sister outside of Starbucks on a cold night in January. My voice cracked and my shoulders shook as I cried and confessed shame to her that I had carried alone for 5 months. My testimony was shattered, my plans for future ministry shot. When I finished the story, I couldn’t meet her eyes. Surely my standing with her was ruined as well. But in the following moments she did something so unlikely, so unwarranted that I knew it had to be Jesus through her. She reached across the table and held my trembling hands. She told me she loved me and that I had never looked more beautiful to her.


Jesus had big plans for me, she said. I was forgiven and new. From that point on I saw my hurt and shame for what they were: healed scars. That’s when I stopped feeling disqualified.


Divine Purpose
Did you know Jesus carries scars too?
John 20:19 says “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord."
 
One of my all-time favorite messages is Spurgeon’s sermon on “The Wounds of Jesus”. My goodness. I have been meditating on this concept for months and I still can’t get enough. Think about it. You and I so quickly attempt to gain distance from our painful pasts and places of shame. We mentally send those memories to the trash bin. But Jesus, He maintains the sin pierced wounds in His risen body. Why?


Possibly to show us that He truly is all He has claimed to be. Savior. Healer. Redeemer.
Perhaps to remind us that though something has been suffered, it has also been overcome.
Do you suppose that maybe, just maybe He longs to assure us that even in our weakness, He will never discard us?
I tend to think so. I tend to think that Jesus is a world class recycler.
The God who wastes nothing, not even His scars.


So why are we wasting ours?
Why have we muzzled the past? We’ve swept it under the carpet, shoved it into the closet and repeatedly attempted to bury it. Don’t you see that when Christ died on the Cross, He purchased every single part of you? The pain, the shame, and the scars.


I’m not suggesting to you a type of transparency righteousness, that I am better than you because I talk about my past. Although I will say that my scars have proven my most potent witness. I haven’t shared this with you for shock value or because I relish in my mistakes, but because I can relate to what it’s like feeling disqualified.
I share my scars because they are a testament to the grace, not the girl. Because I was dead but now I’m alive. I was a flesh mess but I have been recycled, redeemed, and remade.


Louie Giglio said “Don’t hide your scars, your scars are your story.”
Paul said “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
Jesus said "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  See my hands and my feet?”
When the God who wastes nothing speaks through your scars, they proclaim the same thing they did to the disciples that day behind doors they thought were locked.

“Jesus.”