When I was a young teenager I went to a friend’s house while her parents were away for the weekend. Other friends joined in the ‘party’. We raided the liquor cabinet and proceeded to become inebriated which is a euphemism for ‘drunk’. Yep, we were having a good time until….I decided to do something foolish which is another word for just plain stupid. I pretended my bike was my horse and I was going to run with it and jump on. I jumped. I missed. I fell onto the hard asphalt road. And to this day I have a scar on my knee. I have other scars, some of which I don’t want to reveal in public but suffice it to say that each scar reveals a teaching moment, a healing moment, and a grace moment.

Scars can be teaching moments. You see the scar. You remember the event and what you learned perhaps through your own foolish ways or as the object of someone else’s foibles.

Scars evidence healing for many people be it physical or emotional. Sometimes the wound isn’t forgotten, isn’t healed and the scar has yet to make its appearance. It takes a long time for many people.

I believe that God has the incredible loving power to restore that wounded body or soul to wholeness and to cover it with a scar of his loving-kindness. Wounds have a God-given restorative power, even the emotional ones.

I’m remembering the apostle Peter who almost drowned through his foolishness. The greater wound was that he betrayed his loyalty to Jesus. That wound went deep, plunging Peter’s soul into the darkness of tears and sorrow. But Jesus later healed the wound, gently caressing that soul and restoring Peter’s place in the fold. Peter would always remember the wrong he did but even more, he would recall the grace of his Lord.

We need to help one another clean the wounds and allow the scars to form. The scar is God’s grace. Yeah, we can see the scar as a remembrance but more so as the Spirit’s work of restoration, reconciliation.

And yes there are times when God, by his word or spirit, comes to us like a skilled surgeon to cut deep into our lives to reveal something that is harmful to us; and as the divine surgeon, he lovingly cuts with precision to allow the healing to begin. That would be the loving caring discipline of God, not the abusing punishment of a mean vindictive creator.

Above all let scars be reminders of what God’s love has done or will do. And don’t forget the scars in the hands of Jesus, reminders to the world of the healing love of God.