Scars

The day: Memorial Day, 1995

The time: Mid Morning

The weather: Sunny

The place: The family farm

It was a gorgeous morning. I had been dating this guy for about a year and a half and he wanted to go fishing and ride four wheelers on his day off. Who was I to decline an invitation of fun?

He set up a tent in my uncle's yard, I slept at my folk's house and we made plans for an early morning rendezvous with the ponds. 

It had been a very wet spring, (upon reflection, what spring isn't?) and there were some major issues with our normal trails. We'd been told which areas of the farm to avoid and off we went. Flying down the dirt lane, across the creek and into an alfalfa field. 

I tend to be a touch competitive and so I gunned my four wheeler to get across the field ahead of my guy and had just gotten to the lane when I realized my four wheeler was caught in between some very large ruts left by the tractors. I couldn't steer my way out so I pressed on the hand brakes as quickly as I could.

And didn't slow down. From this point on everything is a huge blur.

I heard screams (not mine)

I felt my stomach drop

I bounced. Hard.

To

The

Ground

I was dazed as I lay there. I tried to sit up but the world was spinning around me. It was hard to collect my thoughts and this guy I was with kept yelling my name over and over and he kept shoving me to the ground as I tried to sit up to assess the damage to my body.

When he finally calmed down enough to understand that I was alive, I looked around and was stunned. There sat the four wheeler I had just been on. All I could think was Uncle Bill was going to kill me for destroying his freshly strung fence. The post I hit had barely moved but the barbed wire was going to need some repair.

Wait

Barbed wire??

That's when I looked down at my body. My arm was mangled. 

One trip to the ER coming up. No broken bones, tons of stitches, and a warning to be more careful when out riding is what I received. 

I was a mess, but safe. No worse for the wear, right?

There have been many changes, but 21 years later I still have proof of that injury. It went from ugly, raised, red stripes that would throb occasionally to dull white lines that only really show when I flip my arm around.

Just a small reminder of the lesson I learned all those years ago.

And I am reminded that physical scars are just that. Scars. But they reflect damage that had been done in the past.

It's funny, yet not, but I have never had a single person say to me, "Wow, Teresa, that must have hurt, but it's time to let that go. Forget about it. Move on. The pain of that was yesterday, I'm sure you learned your lesson and there's no reason to mention it ever again. Besides, I'm sure the four wheeler is sorry it failed you when you needed it the most."

Yeah, never heard that.

But I do it hear those words often when discussing emotional scars. Time to get over it. Move on. Apologies have been made. No use dwelling on the past. It's over and done with.

Know what I think about that?

HUMPF!!

Our emotional scars are not as readily seen but they are there. When it is a fresh event there is still throbbing pain that flares up occasionally. The red welts of a fresh wound hurt and there is a defense mechanism that is often in place to stop oneself from being injured again. It took me several weeks to get back on a four wheeler. It took me months before I could ride one with any type of speed.

To this day, I am aware of the damage that one can cause. My lesson was learned. I will forever be apprehensive.

How do we get over emotional pain and scarring? How do we learn to love after pain? How do we stop being apprehensive around the ones that caused the pain?

I don't know. I don't have all the answers. I do know that I can not do it without Jesus.

But I also know this: Ignoring the scars and pretending they aren't there will not make them go away. Recognizing there is a scar is sometimes the first step in healing.

And we all need a good healthy dose of healing, no matter what type of scar we face today.

James 5:16

My emphasis- Pray for one another, so that you may be healed