Invisible Scars

Tonight Steve and I went out to dinner and once again, as so often happens, I saw someone distressed. I certainly don't look around for people who are sad, but they still show up in front of me. This time it was our waitress. I observed another server rubbing her back and looking like she was talking to her in a kind way. Then came the tissues - and the dash into the bathroom for a moment. And the teary red eyes... Sigh.

This episode reminded me of the beginning of a new book I've started to read this week: The Scars that have Shaped Me: How God Meets Us in Suffering by Vaneetha Rendall Risner. (Thanks, Esther!) I was drawn to this book because Vaneetha is a contributor on the GriefShare videos that we watch every Wednesday evening. What credentials does this woman have to write on "scars?"  From the back cover:

Twenty-one surgeries by age thirteen (polio). Years in the hospital. Verbal and physical bullying from classmates. Multiple miscarriages as a young wife. The death of a child. A debilitating progressive disease. Riveting pain. Abandonment. Unwanted divorce."

Yep: I think she knows what she is talking about...

Vaneetha explains her decades-long discomfort with 'showing' the scars on her legs - and so she chose to hide them when in public. She believed that she was more valuable as a person if no one could see them. But then she reflected upon the passage in John 20 where Jesus presented His resurrected self to His disciples: "...he showed them His hands and His side."  How did that change her perspective?

"Jesus didn't need to have scars on His resurrected body. His body could have been perfect, unblemished, unscarred. But He chose to keep His scars so His disciples could validate His identity. And even more importantly, so they could be assured that He had conquered death... Rather than physical imperfections, Jesus's scars are breathtakingly beautiful. They represent His love and our salvation." 

Perhaps the lesson here is that we should accept and even in a counter-intuitive way, 'embrace' our own scars from wounds that hurt so badly last week or 20 years ago? Maybe in being willing to show our scars, God would use them to minister to others?  As I looked around the restaurant, I wondered how many hidden scars were in that room. Invisible scars that aren't as noticeable as damaged legs or burned faces - yet are still reminders to at least the carrier of the scars of intense suffering.

Back to our waitress: if we had not seen her desperate attempt to hide her tears, perhaps we would not have been able to be especially kind to her when she brought by our check. Perhaps God allows us to see the scars of others "...so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."