Monday, March 20, 2006

Well, I noticed I have another scar forming. I was tightening a large bolt on a trenching machine gearbox and I cut into my finger on an adjoining piece of metal. I have a number of scars. They hold memories for me. I have three on my right forearm, where I was cut at different times, several on my legs from different things, one from a beloved pet that accidentally scratched me. I have a surgical scar on my lower abdomen, oh and the one on my left shoulder where I fell onto an aerator spike and drove it into my body. I was twelve, and didn't tell my parents about that one, because I was afraid that might get into trouble for playing in the garden. I walked around not moving my left arm above my head for a week. What an idiot. When I was about fifteen, my hand got pierced with a quarter inch thick by two inch spike. I remember holding my wrist to keep my injured hand from shaking as my father applied hydrogen peroxide, as an antiseptic. My sister was watching, concerned, and asked if it hurt. I chose not to respond, while my father turned to her and said, "Oh, it hurts."
I wouldn't get rid of my scars I guess. They aren't bad enough to offend my sense of vanity, and in a truly weird way, they can sometimes bring me a sense of comfort when I see them.
Scars are like that. They often represent pain, sure, but they also represent a hurt that's been healed.
Someday everybody who has ever lived will bow before a loving and forgiving Savior who bears the scars of the wounds He endured for me, for us, and there will be nothing weird or strange about the comfort and peace and joy that the sight of Him will bring to those of us who have trusted Him. Healing our hurts, by enduring the pain we deserved, was His choice, and His beautiful design for removing the impassable barrier of sin that prevented us from being truly alive, and from spending our eternity with Him. This is a gift from Him to us. Whether or not we choose to accept His gift is our choice.
I choose to follow Him. Some people have a hard time with the idea that Jesus had to die for them, and they reject His wounds. They feel that their own goodness will usher them into eternity, and Heaven, or they believe He was just a guy who was either misguided, or mistreated by others. I would still follow Him if I believed He wasn't God, because He is righteous. His teachings bear that out, and the world would be far less scarred, if people would at the very least, treat each other in the way that He instructed them to. But they should look deeper, and pay attention, because all of our names, are written on His hands.

Zech 13:66 And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.KJV

Gal 6:17-1817 From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
18 Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.KJV

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