Scars

It’s a curious thing about scars. We remember them. We remember the finest details of the circumstances that gave birth to them, the wounds that formed them. While the passage of time fades other memories like sunlight on a photograph, scars do not become dim in remembrance. Their memories retain the bright colors, the crisp edges, the sounds, and even the scents of their creation. Scars are like that. They endure. They withstand. They serve as a bridge between our then and our now, spanning the deep chasms wherein we have cast all the lesser memories of our lives.

I have a scar on my left hand that I got as a small child. It developed from an inch-long gouge delivered by a rusty, protruding screw on a neighbor’s metal swing set sliding board. The injury hurt but I didn’t cry. I didn’t even tell my mother. It was not in any way, shape, or form a traumatic childhood event. And yet, 55 years later I can still rerun a film clip in my mind of the circumstances surrounding that injury just as if it had happened yesterday, right down to the smallest details – the waning light of a warm summer evening, the smell of fresh-cut grass, the squeak of my foot slipping on the slick metal slide as I tried to climb up the board to the top instead of using the ladder, and the resulting sudden loss of balance that caused my left hand to lose its grip and catch the gnarled slot of a rusty screw midway up the right side rail of the sliding board. I was only 6 or 7 years old. How is it I can remember all that stuff and forget my wedding anniversary? It’s the scar. Scars don’t let us forget.

There are scars that we wish we could forget, disfiguring scars born from great pain and trial. Conversely, there are  scars over which we reminisce fondly as we relate the humorous circumstances of their origin to friends who have already heard the story more than once and probably don’t want to hear it again. Some scars are the authors of many words. Others speak volumes by their quietude.

And then, there are those singular, perhaps uncommon scars that command silence altogether, inasmuch as their mere existence is an esteemed treasure for which no words suffice.

I possess some of those treasured scars. They are on my left forearm – an assortment of round, quarter-inch diameter white spots of scar tissue. They were put there 45 years ago by the pointed fingernails of my little sister, Tracy. Tracy and I were 7 1/2 years apart in age. Irritating her was one of my favorite pastimes as a teenager. Tracy was small, slender, fierce as a wolverine when angered, and absolutely fearless in battle against her much older and stronger big brother. I admired that. I admired her intensity. It was something we had in common.

Tracy’s weapons of choice were her incredibly sharp fingernails. In order to avoid a more serious injury, which she was fully capable of inflicting, I made it a habit of simply presenting to her my left forearm and daring her to make it hurt. No further coaxing was necessary. 

With bared teeth and a low-pitched growl, Tracy would clamp the tips of her fingers onto my forearm, sinking her fingernails deep into my skin. The force of the effort caused her fingers to tremble, which created something similar to a jackhammer effect. I needed to squeeze my fist firmly in defense against the drilling stabs, pulling the muscles taut as blood seeped from around the fingernails that were slowly embedding themselves in my flesh. It hurt like the dickens but I refused to betray the pain. “Doesn’t hurt a bit,” I would tease through smiling, clenched teeth. Somehow, Tracy was always able to responded to my lie with a surprisingly fresh reserve of additional clamping force from her petite hands. When her strength abated she would simply retract her claws and break off the attack, walking away not in defeat, but with the full expectation that we would face off again another day and in like manner – and holding with certainty the assurance that with persistent effort the outcome would eventually fall in her favor. That was Tracy. Little Sis was something else.

In April of 2017, the day after Easter Sunday, Tracy died. She was only 52. It was cancer that got her. Less than six months after being diagnosed, she was gone. Having battled with her myself, I did not expect that outcome. I don’t think Tracy expected that outcome, either, even though the doctors told her otherwise.

I think of Tracy every time I look at the little white scars on my left forearm. They are right there in front of me every day – when I work, when I eat, when I hug my grandchildren. They are always in view. The memory of their origin has withstood the passing of time. They will not allow me to forget. I do not want to forget. Those scars are a treasure to me, precious, and of great value.

Our Lord makes use of the powerful memory of treasured scars in Isaiah 49:15-16 when He responds to a lament from Jerusalem that she had been forgotten by God:

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget thee! Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands.  Isaiah 49:15-16a 

The reference here is to the not-uncommon ancient practice of intentionally scarring oneself with the name or likeness of a loved one by using a sharp implement to inscribe their image into the palms. God says that those scars create a memory even more indelible than that of a mother for her small child! He then uses that compelling image of treasured scars to communicate to His people the nature of His eternal love for them: “I will not forget thee!” He says.  How do we know? It’s the scars. The scars will not fail to remember. “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands!” It is a powerful image.

Jesus, today and for eternity, bears in His glorified body the scars of a cruel death on the cross, a death that paid the price for our sin: For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. I Peter 3:18 

The nail prints were graven upon His hands willingly, out of love for you and for me. Look at them. Look closely. Behold the nail-scarred hands. Do you see your name? Is it graven upon His palms?

If you have put your trust in Jesus, your name is there. It is in front of Him always and forever. You belong to Him and He will not forget you. He cannot forget you. Consider the scars. They are precious to Him. Their memory speaks for Him: “I will not forget thee! Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands!”

It is a curious thing about scars.