(by Michael)
We all get scars on our bodies over the course of our
lifetime. Scars are reminders of past
events, and sometimes lessons learned. They
invoke memories in the mind of the beholder, even memories that we would rather
not recall. My mother has scars on her
tummy from whence more than one of her children were delivered into this life
via caesarian. It’s not a pretty site
(no scar is), but she is proud of it because of the joy that has resulted in
having children. As I share stories from
my past on this blog, it is not my intention to dig up the negative things from
my life (especially the ones I hope my son does not repeat), but to point out
the positive things that happen amidst the negative, even if only to look back
with amusement and remember how I got through it. My point is that while our scars appear to be
blemishes from our past, their stories often provide meaning and explain who we
are.
I have many scars, including one on my right eyebrow that's a result from running in church. When I was
about 7 years old, I had a tendency to run out of the chapel as soon as
sacrament meeting was over and bolt to the primary wing (by way of the water
fountain) for Sunday School. One Sunday,
as soon as the last “Amen” was said at the end of the sacrament meeting
benediction, I jumped up from the row where my family was sitting and started
darting through and around the many people who instantly filled the
aisles. Well, I tripped over Brother
Thomas’ foot, fell forward, and bonked my head on the edge of the nearest
wooden pew. I got a gash above my eye,
and blood streamed out. I was crying, of
course. My mother took me to the emergency room. Brother Thomas felt so bad about it that he
wanted to accompany us to the ER, but he had other obligations still at church
that morning, so he sent his wife with us instead. While we were sitting in the waiting room at
the ER, I was shivering a little because the room was cool. Sister Thomas noticed and gave me her knitted
sweater to keep warm. As blood dripped
from my head onto her nice white sweater I could hear her say quietly to my
mother, “Oh no, he’s bleeding on my sweater!”
I didn’t take care not to get her sweater bloody because I thought she
gave it to me and wouldn’t mind. Surely
she knew I couldn’t stop bleeding, I thought to myself. But then I started feeling bad about it. I still do, but not as much because I know
now that those are material things and it happened long ago. So after all of that I got two stitches in my
eyebrow. The bleeding stopped, and the
knot on my brow eventually went away, but the scar remains to remind me of that
event. It wasn’t so tragic, but I did
learn to not run in crowded rooms with hard edges around. Now, when I see little children running in
church, I caution them to slow down, not because I’m a boring old man, but
because I know how dangerous it can be.
I have another scar on my stomach. It’s rather small now, but it used to be much
bigger. When I was about 4 years old,
there was a tree that stood between our house and the next door neighbor’s
house. I don’t know how tall it was, but
it was taller than the house. I loved
climbing things, especially trees. The
branches on that tree were not great big branches, but they were big enough for
a 4-year-old to stand on (some of them, anyway). One day, I determined to climb the tree. As I climbed it I got so excited that I
decided I would climb to the very top, and I did. As I clung to the top of the tree, looking
around and enjoying my accomplishment, the branch I was standing on gave way
and I began to fall. It seemed like I
smacked into every single branch on the way down as I fell toward the ground in belly-flop
formation. After I landed on the ground
I lifted up my t-shirt to survey the damage and saw several deep scratches on
my torso that were starting to bleed. I
started to panic and ran inside to seek help.
The scratches healed, but left a long scar that extended from one side
of my chest down to the other side of my stomach in a diagonal pattern. Over the years the scar slowly faded
away. Now, it is barely more than an
inch long. When I got older I would
crack jokes about the origin of the scar.
I claimed it was a shrapnel wound from back in ‘Nam, or a result of a
knife fight (“you should’ve seen the other guy”). As insignificant as the true reason for the
scar is, I have other scars that are from even less significant scratches, like
the one that resulted from a jagged edge of the metal sousaphone
I carried in the marching band in high school.
The funny thing about that scar is that it crosses the other scar on my
stomach to form an X. Anyway, I guess I didn’t
learn to not climb trees. I have climbed
many a tree since and fallen out of a couple, but I have gotten better at
judging the reliability of the branch I climb on. Sometimes, you can’t let tragic events keep
you down.
I sometimes wonder if when we are resurrected with our
perfect immortal bodies we will still have any of the scars we receive in this
life. I think of Jesus Christ’s scars,
the nail wounds in his hands and feet and the spear wound in his side. He purposely kept those scars in his
resurrection to show them to us as a witness of the trauma he suffered for our
sakes. He said to us through his prophet
Isaiah, “behold, I have graven thee on the palms of my hands….” (Isaiah 49:16) The beautiful thing about Christ’s sacrifice
is that we can be healed of all of our scars—both physical and
emotional—through the power of the atonement and resurrection. Isaiah also says in the same chapter, “the
Lord hath comforted his people and will have mercy upon his afflicted.” (Isaiah
49:13) He knows our afflictions, and we
are ever present in his memory. “Can a woman
forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her
womb?” continues the prophet, “yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget
thee” is the promise of the Savior. As
we look upon our scars and remember their causes, let them also remind us of Jesus’
scars, even the tokens of our salvation.
May we find hope and comfort in what they represent: our ability to be healed through the
atonement of Jesus Christ.
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