THESE SCARS
They Still Speak
The Silent Language of Living Wounded
Wherever you are today, your limitations, your walls, your scars are before God’s eyes.
September 30th, 2022
SHIPWRECKED!
We have spent an entire month delving into the many ways we live wounded lives and suffer battle scars. One thing I think we all can attest to is that not one of us is alone. Like we read the other day, we are all going through a storm, have just been through a storm, or about to head into one.
Right now, Hurricane Fiona has wrecked havoc, leaving devastation in her wake in numerous countries. Tropical Storm Ian is also making his path and building in fright and fury as he travels through the Gulf looking for a place to land. Weathercasters are proclaiming doom and States of Emergency are already being designated even before Ian travels very far. Storms cause for all of us hardship and earned lessons, and the cost—emotionally, mentally, physically, financially, spiritually, all of it—is astronomical.
Another part of our country is on fire. Other areas are at war. People are fleeing, hiding, migrating, abandoning ship, walking away. More people than I wish to count live homeless, in cardboard boxes and makeshift camping spots, little villages springing up on the sides of interstates and in river ravines. Some of the people I care deeply for are fighting daily battles with just plain living. Because living is hard, and life is not for wimps. We all have been shipwrecked, tossed up on forgotten shores by angry waters that beat against what little ebbing and flowing resolve and reserves we have left. We wonder if we should have just jumped overboard, or better yet, what could we have tossed overboard that might make hope float again or provide a life raft if our dinghy fails.
There is One Who knows precisely where you are, where I am headed. He has traveled this way before, and He is aware of the cost of the journey and what dangers and snares might grip us. He knows the wounds we will encounter and the scars which will remain, and He provides a salve of grace for the healing. It is only in Jesus that our wholeness can be complete. There is none other that truly can satisfy or is able to provide relief when we are weary and the pathway is long and the hurting is deep. It requires surrender on our part. That is all. Giving it up to Him, trusting Him with it, the letting go and letting Him.
Jesus is all that, and even more. He is because He was pierced by our transgressions and He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5, NIV)
Isaiah 49:16, ‘”Can’t you see? I have carved your name on the palms of My hands! Your walls are always my concern.”’
