Scars Remind Us of Christ's Cross

Someone I know closed an email message recently with these words: "Love as if you’ve never been hurt." I like that. It is so easy to isolate from relationships due to not wanting to be hurt again.

I have scars on my body. Several significant ones in fact. On my right leg I received 17 stitches back in 1979 as the result of an injury sustained during a track race in high school. On my left index finger I received 7 stitches resulting from a botched roast beef cutting incident (100% operator error). I have a 3 inch scar on my right abdomen, the result of an emergency appendectomy in 2004. The pain from all of these is long gone but the scars remain. I remember how I got them. I still do similar activities, but with more wisdom! But some see their relational scars and continue to remember how they got them and as a result they run from relationships. They become tough to be around; they carry their scars like a sign –"Don’t get too close to me!". Scars will always remain. You remember. You still hurt. But not in the same way if you deal with it appropriately and biblically. Resolve differences, reconcile. Put it under the blood of Christ. Let your scars remind you of the cross.

It is one of the reasons we are so insistent at Grace Church that people get in a group where they can know people and be known. Growth in Christ is 100% dependent on God, but the outworking is definitely a community project. We need the Lord and we need His people to bear our burdens and encourage as well as challenge us. It is the way God has designed healthy relationships to work.