Life is full of experiences. Some of these can cause scars on our soul.  Only God can heal and turn these trials into treasures.

Scars tell a life story. Each scar represents a moment in time or a passage of time when something happened to us or through us that we will never forget and where our life was changed forever. Our scars are permanent reminders of what’s happened to us in life.

I have several scars on my body, and each has a story to tell. I have one on my forehead that I earned sliding on the ice in the fifth grade during recess – showing off to my friends! I have other scars, too. There are the scars from having my children. There are also a few scary scars I have earned from medical tests, surgeries and injuries I’ve encountered on my journey through life. Yes, every scar we carry has a story behind it. Some are humorous and some are definitely not!

Perhaps the most hurtful scars I have are the ones you cannot see.
You know the ones I’m talking about. They are the scars on our hearts and in our souls.  

We receive these scars in one of two ways:
What has been done to us by other people or what has been done through us by our own mistakes and failures.

Either way, I believe that scars are not something we need to hide or be ashamed of, but rather a chance to share the healing, restoring power of Jesus Christ with the hurting world around us. A scar indicates healing and all those who are hurting are longing for it.

Perhaps you have wounds in your life right now that are still healing. Maybe you have never looked at the scars in your life and viewed them as potential positives in your life.

Can I encourage you to look at your life’s journey and ask God to help you find peace and purpose in the pain from your past?

The Lord wants to hear our scars – our deepest hurts – and change the damage they represent into healed places that He can use for His glory and to help others.

The two types of scars come by various methods.

The self-inflicted hurts come from our own sin, wrong choices, addictions, fear or anger; while the wounds perpetrated by others can be caused by a past filled with neglect, abuse, betrayal or abandonment.

We all have scars, we just don’t like to acknowledge them sometimes. This can be caused by bitterness and anger. The scars can often bring such embarrassment, we hide and ignore them pretending they don’t exist and that we’re just perfectly fine. Sometimes they are just so painful we ignore them and do our best to forget we have them.

The Bible tells us of someone who had scars just like we do.

Look at Mark 5:1-20.

And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea. And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine. And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts. And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him. Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel.

Here we see a demon-possessed man, commonly known in Christian circles as the “Maniac of Gadara.” How would you like to be know by that kind of name? (Penny, the Maniac Lady of Riverside, doesn’t sound too appealing to me!!!)

Yet, I really love this story because it shows the great love of our sweet Jesus for the scarred and broken in this world. People just like you and me who have been through hard and trying times that have hurt and scarred us. Imagine what he must have looked like. The Bible says that he had been cutting himself with stones. It’s so sad to think of the condition this man was in when Jesus found him. Once he was saved, everything changed for him, but he still had to live with the scars. I think I would have wanted to move far away from that city to a place where no one knew me!

Satan wants to take the hurts and scars and make you feel worthless and ugly because of them. Even though you may have been born again and know you’ve been redeemed, the old devil keeps rubbing your nose in the past.

This is one of his oldest tricks! He tempts us to sin and then when we do – he condemns us for it! Or he takes our feelings of no self-worth and regret and magnifies them! But Jesus said that’s not how God sees us!!!! When we are saved the blood of Jesus Christ covers us – past, present, future – and makes us worthy to serve God.

The Bible says in Romans 8:1-2:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

How do we transition from being ashamed by the old scars we carry to allow God to use them for His glory?

SCARS
Finding Healing & Peace for the Past

1. Do not allow Satan to convince you that you can no longer be used by God because you have scars.

Once you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, He made you worthy! The truth of the matter is – regardless of your past – none of us deserve to serve the Lord

Jesus saw this man as a worthy servant to represent Him and that’s exactly how He views you today!

2. Choose to learn to find the value in the painful hurts of your past.

While there are many unique purposes and lessons learned from the hurts in our pasts.

Our wounds can be useful as they often are what bring us to Christ. Those old scars can cause us to mature and develop greater faith in the Lord. We become tenderhearted toward others who have suffered hurt and our compassion grows.
Just the same, the opposite can also be true. When we are wounded we can view God wrongly and blame Him. We can become bitter and hardened, resenting everything that happened to us.

How we view our scars is a CHOICE. We cannot change or fix the past, but we can decide how it will influence our lives today. We alone choose whether the scars will be healed or hardened – whether we will be better or bitter from the experiences.

These scars often leave holes in our hearts, a soul brokenness, that we cannot fix on our own. While we might resent the pain and the source of the hurt, we must remember that Jesus still loves us and that He longs to heal and shine through the holes in our lives!

3. Choose to believe that God will redeem your hurts and that He has a greater plan and purpose even when we don’t understand why we were wounded.

We truly have a choice. It’s our decision whether we will hide our scars from the fear of others and their opinions or we can choose to invest our hurtful lessons in the lives of others.

The healed scars in the life of the maniac did not just represent his release from his sin and the salvation that came to him from Christ, but it also marked the beginning of his ministry!

The Bible says it best in Ephesians 2:10,

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

God, in His foreknowledge knew you would accept Christ as your Savior and planned the steps of your life – the path you would take – with its blessings and trials. He chose and planned your life for a reason, just the way it is. We need to take both the blessings and the trials and use what God gives us to reach out to others on His behalf.

Not only are we qualified through Christ to serve, but He has great plans and good works for us to do for Him – planned before we were born!

4. When we choose healing, God then takes the pain and the ongoing hurt from the past and transforms it to use it for good.

Don’t forget the promise found in Romans 8:28:
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

God intends for us to use the comfort and wisdom He gives us in our painful situations to reach out and help others.

By this God makes us “comfort-able” – able to comfort others.

Listen to the plan found in II Corinthians 1:3-5:

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.”

5. Give your past with its scars to the Lord and let Him be gloried in your life.

I guarantee you it was difficult for the maniac to go back and start telling people who he was and what had happened. He probably looked pretty rough. I think it’s so sweet that when Jesus and the disciples left, the man want to go with them. He probably felt that all consuming, powerful, unconditional love from Jesus and wanted to go where He went. But Jesus had other plans for this new believer. He didn’t tell him to move away and hide from his past. Not at all, instead, the Lord told him to go around and tell everyone how he had been healed and redeemed by God.

Our world is full of hurting people! Everywhere you go there are support groups for all types of hurting folks. Every talk show, every self-help book, web site or program offers answers to help people in all situations of life.

As children of God we know that the only true healing and help will come from Him and yet how are folks to know this unless we reach out and tell them!

.Our pain whether physical or psychological can bring an intense sense of aloneness. People feel abandoned and lonely in their injury. When we are hurting we often want to keep our scars hidden away and unshared. Many people feel like this in life. They also have similar scars, but feel lonely as though no one would empathize with their pain. But what if there were someone there to understand???

Chances are God will send someone across your life’s path that needs to hear your story!

Will you open your heart to reach out to let her know that there is someone who does understand and cares????

Are you willing to expose your scars to give evidence of the healing power of the Lord Jesus?

Would you be willing to invest your scars in the lives of others???

The following story illustrates the redeeming truth of our scars very well…

PUPPIES FOR SALE

A store owner was tacking a sign above his door that read “Puppies For Sale.” Signs like that have a way of attracting small children, and sure enough, a little boy appeared under the store owner’s sign. “How much are you going to sell the puppies for?” he asked.

The store owner replied, “Anywhere from $30 to $50.”

The little boy reached in his pocket and pulled out some change. “I have $2.37,” he said. “Can I please look at them?”

The store owner smiled and opened the kennel and out came the mama dog followed by five teeny, tiny balls of fur.

One puppy was lagging considerably behind. Immediately the little boy singled out the lagging, limping puppy and said, “What’s wrong with that little dog?”

The store owner explained that the veterinarian had examined the little puppy and had discovered it didn’t have a hip socket. It would always limp. It would always be lame.

The little boy became excited. “That is the puppy that I want to buy.”

The store owner said, “No, you don’t want to buy that little dog. If you really want him, I’ll just give him to you.”

The little boy got quite upset. He looked straight into the store owner’s eyes, pointing his finger, and said, “I don’t want you to give him to me. That little dog is worth every bit as much as all the other dogs and I’ll pay full price. In fact, I’ll give you $2.37 now, and 50 cents a month until I have him paid for.”

The store owner countered, “You really don’t want to buy this little dog. He is never going to be able to run and jump and play with you like the other puppies.”

To his surprise, the little boy reached down and rolled up his pant leg to reveal a badly twisted, crippled left leg supported by a big metal brace. He looked up at the store owner and softly replied,

“Well, I don’t run so well myself, and the little puppy will need someone who understands!”

Friends, the Lord views your wounds and scars and sees them as precious and valuable. He alone knows the impact they can have on others eternally. What does God want to accomplish through you?

Will you open your heart to reach out to let her know that there is someone who does understand and cares?

Hurts? Wounds? Scars? Yes, we all have them!
Don’t be ashamed of your scars! It’s by those scars that the world will see and recognize the Savior – the true Healer and Comforter!