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Family Story
Cynthia:
My grandfather was an incredibly gracious man.
When I was a kid, I noticed Granddad had a very interesting scar across his face. I asked my dad about it, and dad wouldn’t answer. Later, I finally asked again.
He said Granddad was with a couple of his friends, and one of them got irritated and pulled a knife. My grandfather stepped in front of the victim and took the blow. That’s a very noble thing to do. So sometimes scars can be beautiful.
Sacred Scars
I’m looking at this book that Dr. Michelle Bengston wrote called Sacred Scars. I can see how scars can be sacred.
Dr. Bengston is a board-certified neurophysiologist and an international resource on mental health.
Obviously, this scar was visible. Are there scars that are not visible?
Michelle:
Oh, Cynthia, The majority of our scars are not visible. First, we have a wound, which is an irritation in an area of our lives. That wound can be physical as with your grandfather, or it can be emotional, relational, or spiritual. Our wounds can come in the form of grief or loss, but when they are fresh they hurt.
After healing has taken place, a scar forms. It doesn’t take away the memory of the incident that caused the pain. However, once a scar is healed, it no longer hurts.
Many of our scars come in the form of emotional wounds. When things have happened to us, or when we’ve participated in things that have caused pain and suffering.
Reason for Scars
Sometimes it comes in the form of broken relationships, rejection or abandonment. We even experience wounds when we are separated from God. But the exciting thing is, God allows us to pursue him and our healing. That’s when we see the manifestation of Romans 8:28 take place.
Most of us have heard that Bible verse band-aid. But it says God works all things together for our good. For those who love him and have been called according to his purpose. Our sacred scars are a beautiful picture of how God works all things together for good. He will heal if we take him our wounds and submit them to his healing hand.
Cynthia:
Is it possible to have a scar and not be aware of it?
Michelle:
Yes, what often happens.
Avoid the Pain
We’ll go through a painful situation and lock up our hurt in a closet in our hearts. The problem is that pain will come out at some later time when it’s a less opportune time/
Another crisis hits, and we realize we’ve got unresolved pain that hasn’t been healed. When we decide to pursue healing, we must feel the pain before we can heal it. At that point, we can appreciate the lessons that we’ve learned.
Cynthia:
That was a chapter in your book. You have to feel it before you can heal it. Can you explain that a little bit more?
Michelle:
None of us wants to experience pain. However, we get to choose whether or not we’re going to submit our wound for healing.
And I’ve had plenty of patients who have said, “I would just be embarrassed if you knew what had happened to me.”
“I would be embarrassed if you knew what I had done.”
Cynthia, frequently when we don’t submit that pain for God to heal, it festers. The wound gets worse.
We humans like to be in control of our situation. Often, we don’t pursue healing because it’s outside of our control.
If we choose to pursue healing, it’s worth it to experience the pain. We put ourselves back into a position of control. A painful situation hurts because we are out of control.
How to Heal
Cynthia:
How much feeling do you need to do to heal?
Michelle:
Let’s take the example of losing a loved one. That can be incredibly painful. However, we must take time to feel the pain. Maybe you need to process a positive relationship or a negative relationship. You grieve what you miss. Plus, you process the loss of dreams or what you wish we had done. God can heal all that.
Over time, those memories are not so painful. They don’t hold the weight. That’s also true with shameful secrets. I’ve interviewed many people and some shared their stories in Sacred Scars. And some have gone through situations they would never have wanted people to know about.
And I see this in my private practice all the time. People would say, Oh, if you only knew what I had done, you would think bad of me. Pretty much as a mental health professional, nothing surprises me anymore. But the truth that I can tell you is that frequently the enemy lies to us. Satan tells us that we will be rejected, unforgiven, and unloved.
As a result, we keep those painful experiences locked up and hidden. Bringing that pain into the light removed the weight and power. All of a sudden, we see that it’s just not as bad as we anticipated it would be.
Satan’s Role
Cynthia:
So you’re saying that Satan uses our scars? Correct?
Oh yes. He doesn’t play fair. He brings guilt, shame, remorse, and condemnation. As a result of the shame, he gets us to isolate, hide, and pull back from our ministry.
I went through a devastating bout of clinical depression. Satan isolated me and got me to believe the lie that God would never be able to use me again. Why would patients believe me if I couldn’t prevent my depression?
Cynthia, because I’d gone through it, I could relate to my patients so much better.
The enemy was lying to me so I wouldn’t be effective in my service to the Lord. Now I can relate to my patients because I’ve been through that. That’s what I mean by our scars being sacred. Once I healed, now God can use that to encourage other people.
Cynthia
I have images of people sitting around showing their scars. They are comparing them and saying, “…mine was worse than yours.” Did you have that happen in your family?
Older Generations
Michelle:
Especially when you go to family reunions, I think the older generation wears their scars as a badge.
I think it’s a beautiful thing. It shows, and there’s a chapter in my book about this. It shows we are strong. It shows the goodness and faithfulness of God. We’re still here, despite all the pain, despite all the loss, despite all the wounds. We survived every difficult thing, not a test of God’s goodness and faithfulness.
Writing Sacred Scars
Cynthia:
That is a beautiful thing. Why did you decide to write about scars in particular? Obviously, you’ve talked to lots of people that have suffered. Is it because of some of the things that you’ve seen?
Michelle:
It’s a two-part reason. One is because I realize that we all go through something difficult.
Jesus told us we’re going to experience trials, trouble, suffering, and pain.
However, he said to take heart, I have overcome the world.
So many people would come into my office, downcast and ashamed. Their wounds would hold them back from experiencing the abundant life that Christ came to give.
Shame
I realized. I was no different from them. I carry scars as well. And I too was ashamed of them. I was ashamed of physical scars.
However, as long as I lived in shame, the enemy had won. The Bible says I am fearfully and wonderfully made. How do I reconcile that with these ugly scars?
Well, Cynthia, Jesus took me to the story of when Jesus was crucified on the cross. In his resurrected body, Jesus appeared to his disciples twice. Because I’ve read in the word that when we get to heaven, we’re going to have these glorified bodies.
So I’m excited about that because I’m likely to be above five feet tall. Maybe I won’t have these ugly scars. But God took me to that passage in scripture where Jesus showed his scars to his disciples, particularly to Thomas.
Jesus was not ashamed of his scars. He reached out his hands to Thomas and said, “Touch my scars and see that it’s me.”
When I really prayed about that.
Jesus’s Scars
Jesus’s scars serve a redemptive purpose, just like your scars. That was a pivotal moment for me because I realized it’s the enemy who says our scars are ugly. God calls them beautiful. He never wastes our pain and he never wastes our past.
Cynthia:
I agree with that. I think that we will remember the lessons. Sometimes I wonder if maybe one or two of the scars I have would just go away.
Like the time I kicked the ladder when I was a kid. I was swimming and I’ve got a big scar on my, toe. I’d like to be rid of that.
You say that it deepens our walk with God. That kind of sounds like biblical speak or a magic cure. How can that be real to someone who is hurting?
Choice
Michelle:
I’ve come to appreciate that God loves us so much that he gives us free will. He is not going to wrestle us for control. If we want God to come into those deep, dark, painful places in our life, it means we’ve got to surrender them to God.
But we get a choice and that can be difficult. I know that is one of the big questions about how can God be a loving God if he allows us to live in such a painful universe. However, God gave us the gift of free will. If he chose how to do things and worked against our free will, that would not be loving.
That would be slavery. So God offers us the opportunity to walk with him. The opportunity to take his hand to say, “God I don’t know how you can bring good out of this, But I’m going to trust you.”
When we do that, God says, “Now I can work.”
Cynthia:
That is true.
Final Words
Michelle:
That is very true. And sin causes all kinds of heartache. That sin is not God’s fault. God allows that person to sin. That sin a lot of times can cause lots of heartache to lots of people. When people mess up, it’s painful.
But God can redeem it all if we surrender it to him.
That is the answer. He can redeem it if we’ll let him.
IF God hadn’t planned a redemption, God would not be good, he would be evil, but he did plan redemption.
I would agree because we can see that in his son. Sometimes Cynthia, it’s hard for us because we don’t want the pain.
God gave us the example of Jesus in the Bible when Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane before he was about to be crucified.
Cynthia;
And what a beautiful example that is to us. We’re going through a painful situation. God doesn’t say we have to like the pain, but if we will trust him through it, he will bring good from it.
