scars – Aspirational Adventures

This tree has been here for about a year now. It was swept down by the floods but it is there as a reminder. At a similar time I had a bit of a mishap on two different youth events. In one I opened a heavy firedoor across my foot and then at a different youth event the following day I feel over going uphill. Both very painful at the time. I still have a scar on my left shin from the fall and a deep line up my right big toe nail. Neither hurts now but both are very clearly still there.

It got me thinking about scars and healings. As you know I have been through quite a bit of QEC healing sessions and have swept out a lot of stuff, but sometimes things trigger a reaction from me and I realise that although I am healed the scars are still there. They are fading and don’t stop me doing things as they used to but it is like there is a reminder. And sometimes it is a good thing. It also helps me to know why I am reacting in a certain way.

For instance because I do walk round in bare feet a lot – hence the name of business BareFoot At The Kitchen Table – I do see my funny toe nail. It has made me more cautious when I open doors. I see the scar on my leg and it reminds me of how clumsy I can be at times too.

When I react to something and acknowledge my headed scar on my heart I can understand what has gone on. I can also remind myself that I have been though healing for that.

I was talking with a friend around this yesterday. We have both been involved with young people and we are both Christians. We were saying that too often we expect people to forget their scars, that to be fully healed means to not have scars. If that were true why then did Jesus show his scars to his disciples? Jesus came back with a scared body even though he was fully healed. I don’t fully understand all the theology around the cross but I do know that Jesus was scared, Jesus died, Jesus rose again, Jesus still had the scars to prove awful things happened to him. Why do we expect to be any different?

So if you or I still have scars that is because we have been through stuff and have been hurt. That does not mean we have not been healed. But I do also know, with the insect bits around my ankles at this time of year, that if I keep picking at those scars they will not heal. So we need to let God through whatever means they know best – whether direct intervention, whether Christian healing, whether things like QEC, whatever – heal us, and help us to leave our scars alone so that even though they may still be visible they are no longer causing us pain.

Come As You Are Not As You Should Be

“Come as you are not as you should be,

don’t cover up those scars,

their your glory, their your story,

their Your Beauty…”

[http://www.onmmusic.com/blog/2015/2/25/new-joshua-luke-smith-ep

These are such powerful lines and yet we got talking about them on the way back from the last time we saw Josh Luke Smith perform this and some interesting things came from our chatting.

It is fine for me to come as I am with my woundings and hurts, my bits where I say and do img_8911-blog the wrong thing, etc but what about others? How willing am I to have people who are hard work, mess my life up, over step my boundaries about? What about the couple we had last year staying in our house who wrote the awful review? Are we happy that they come as they are? Ok so we learned from them but actually we’d have preferred them to come a bit more sorted? What about the person who cuts us up when driving? Who abuses a child? Who like Karen from The Moorside was broken and lied? How happy are we for people to come as they are?

I think it depends often on our relationship with them. Ok as Christians there is this thing 1cb15258fa6a3e274a8e8288ec9b15d0 that we should love everyone as God loves them, but we don’t. I can forgive my children anything because I love them fiercely and still have that mother-tiger protective care element. I can forgive my husband most things because I have chosen to like and love him and forgiving him is my gift I can give him. Many of my friends I can forgive if they are snappy, hurtful, do stuff I’m not sure I like, but that’s because there is some bond between us that makes us friends. For me to not allow them that space to come as they are means I have to break that bond of friendship. There have been people that were my friends that I have had to do that to, who’s “coming as they are” has been more than I could cope with and for my own emotional well-being I have had to make a space between me and them. Does that mean they should change? Not necessarily.

We all put on different faces and show different sides of ourselves when we meet. This isn’t hiding and being something we’re not but this is knowing that we do need to behave differently with different people. When we have people staying here who are similar ages to my children we don’t speak to them as we would Ben and Tabitha. We speak to them differently. Every man who comes through our house I do not behave with in the same way I would behave with my husband. In fact last weekend we had 3 different sets of people to lunch and each meal was different. We acted differently and I suspect the people who came acted in a different way too. This isn’t them “covering up their scars” but is them being true to themselves in the situation they are in.

I think we do need to be willing to accept our scars as much as we accept other people’s. A alone-enough bit like the love your neighbour as yourself and you have to love yourself first. So we need to be able to know we have scars, reveal them wisely, don’t be as we think we should be – because often that means we are false to ourselves anyway and people can feel something is not right and avoid us anyway.

I think we are to be true but be wise. Not everyone wants the raw version of us. We often don’t need to see the raw version of ourselves. But also we must not go around pretending to be something we are not. My crazy story is what has made me me. As I told someone today I’ve made some crazy decisions and have survived. I must say that it is surviving those crazy decisions that has made me – with my scars, my story and my glory 🙂