SCARS

When I was a teenager I was really overweight.  I was known as the "skinniest fat guy" in school, because of the guys who were big, I was the smallest.  But I was still firmly in that category, and with that label came the expectation that I would know my role amongst my peers.  I wasn't, I felt, taken seriously.  I was someone on the margins of my social sphere, funny and creative, but non-threatening.  I was a cartoon.  I would dream of a scenario where I would work out and eat right during a summer break, and return on the first day of school as an instant celebrity because of the dramatic change I had undergone.

I took this with me into college.  My relationships were dysfunctional, and instead of longing for acceptance I longed for stardom.  My emotional needs for acceptance were so great that I would dream of being catapulted to the top of the social food chain, known campus wide, and that drove my creative efforts towards places where I was put in front of people, usually because of music.

Several things changed during my college years that led me to the eventual realization of my dream of slim fitness, but the changes were slow and involved less of my body and more of my heart.   The biggest change came when I realized that the frame that I operated in, the conception of myself as the "fat funny kid" was no longer useful.  Nor was it the truth of who i was.  The power to shape myself and my identity came from within, where God had been working on my heart via the words and counsel of some influential and caring people in my life.  So one day, without realizing that I was about to make a huge difference in my life, I went for a run.  I went for a twenty-minute run, the end of which found me gulping air at the crown of a grassy hill overlooking Union bay and the Seattle skyline.   And something new had descended and clung to me more closely than the baggy sweatshirt I had thrown on to cover my size as I ran.  I felt empowered to change. 

I had run for a couple years, not making a habit out of it, but usually donning my sneakers after feeling sorry for myself late at night.  Real change of habit and mind seemed foreign and impossible for me.  But I understood that night on the hill that something had been switched in my heart.  I truly believed that I could accomplish my goal.  And so I began to run every night.  It wasn't a decision to aim at a certain amount of weight by a certain date, nor a goal for which I had shaped a routine or a plan.  Instead, i made the daily decision, "I am going to run today."  And because I believed that I could, I did.

When Sheri Lewis approached me last week to talk through the SCARS show coming up at SVA, I decided that I needed to show my scars and tell my story.  For me, scars look like long red stretch marks that line my stomach, and loose skin that never seems to firm up completely.  I still feel self-conscious taking my shirt off during men's basketball or on the beach during the summer.  But I'm glad for what they represent in my life: a new creation, a new life.

So College and Career, what's your story?  Where are your scars? 

Know this: that you are loved, and to be loved is to be known.  To be fully embraced we must be fully loved.  And this is a good place for that.

-Chris

Comments

[sheri]

it is interesting that God put this project on my heart but i don't have any good scar stories of my own. i did notice that all my scars are on the left side of my body. my thumb on my left hand has a scar from peeling potatoes and peeling my thumb. i have a few lovely scars from ACL surgery. that was an embarrassing accident of missing two stairs coming off a ladder and hearing a loud pop as my ACL tore. i have scars from having warts burned off when i was a teen. i was so embarrassed about having warts. even more so that they were on my knees. i have a scar on my foot from getting coral poisoning in the virgin islands and having the poison cut out with a scalpel with no anesthesia. i had to have it cut out because i had the red streak of infection going up my leg and the doctor said it was cut it out of cut it off. no pain relief because we were on the cruise ship and in port. my family was on the ship that week to see me in the show and i was on crutches. the doc said if i could fit my foot in my dance shoes i could do the show. i went back stage on crutches...did a show and came back out on crutches.
anyone else..?

[Brittany]

I have a couple of scars myself. Well, more than a couple. I'm really embarrassed and ashamed on how I got them. I'm not going to get in depth with the story, but I got my scars from my last relationship. He didn't abuse me or anything like that. I guess you can say he was my first love, and I know some of you know how that it. It's great in the beginning, but in the end it sucks. I got my scars towards the ending of the relationship, and a little more after. It was hard on me, because I could till something wasn't right. I could sense that we were both walking towards two different paths, and I knew how it was going to end. Because of what I knew, I guess you could say I stopped doing anything physical and just ate my feelings away, even knowing this wasn't the right way to handle it. But I didn't doing anything about it. After the relationship ended, I hid under a mask and pretended like I was fine, and didn't let out my emotions out at all because I didn't want to be seen as someone weak. And because of the way I handled it, I got scars.

[Sarah]

I am going to be sharing my story of scars in the Scars show. I am nervous and scared to do so. There are a lot of other emotions I am feeling as well, but nervous and scared are at the forefront.

Being real and vulnerable can be a very uncomfortable place to be in. It also in the end can bring such a sense of freedom. A weight lifted, not having to carry around the masks and costumes, coming just as yourself. Coming in all your humaness that God made you to be.

It is easy to say these things, but doing them is another story.

I believe God is going to do a lot of healing from the results of the show. Either from those watching or those sharing.

I am trying to set aside my fears, and listen to God. If by my sharing my story helps just one person in anyway, then the fear and all the other emotions will be worth it. I may never know, and that is okay. God has a plan in all of this.

Saying all that too, I am still really terrified to share my story. Which is why, perhaps I have written all of the above and have yet mentioned my scars.

I have scars from cutting. I have struggled most of my life with depression and other mental health disorders. They all connect in one way or another. I am not going to go into it right now. Too much for me at the moment.

I used to hate myself so much that I would cut myself. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I felt like I was out of control of everything, I was falling and there was nothing to stop me.

I had so many emotions in me, I didn't know how to express them or even what they all were. I felt like I was screaming inside, and no one could hear. Cutting was a way I tried to express my emotions. Not very effective in the long run, I might add.

It also was a way to make everything stop. When I cut then that is what I was focused on. I wasn't obsessing about everything else.

I also wanted someone to notice. Well, I did and I didn't. There is a lot of shame. But I wanted someone to stop the hell going on inside of me.

[Brittany]

I can't help thinking of why I have these scars. I know I got them from being depressed of what happened, but I've been pondering of why God has given me these scars. Has God given me scars to help myself learn how to love my body no matter what, and know that I'm not the only one who has gone through this? God already knows that before I got the scars, I didn't really love myself the way I should have. So I wonder if these scars that I have on my body, are to help myself love me more...?? I'm not sure if this is making any sense to anyone or if I'm wording it right?

[Chris Clark]

Sarah, I was really moved by your story. Thank you for sharing it on Sunday. It's amazing to me that someone with so much beauty could miss it when they look at themselves, but if I look closely at myself I think I see the monster much sooner than the man. All of that to say, thank you.

Brittany, I wonder those same questions myself. At one point, Jesus pops in post-resurrection at a house where a man named Thomas lives. Thomas has to see Christ's scars himself in order to believe in God. When Jesus shows up, Thomas immediately gets it. So I wonder if in the same way, our scars are representative of battles that haven't killed us, darkness that hasn't overcome light, hearts that struggle but still trust. I try to take solace in that. Though i know when I'm at the beach, it's the last thing that seems to have any reality at all :-)

[Heather]

I haven't really told many people about what I went through as a growing teen mostly because I am ashamed of it and also I don't want to be assoicated with it anymore. But I can see when you do tell someone it kinda relieves you from it and makes you feel less as if you are a person behind a mask.. so here I go.. As a preteen my parents got divorced and my world came tumbling down, I started having sex and doing drugs at the age of 12 smoking weed, snorting coke and eating shrooms, eventually by age 15 I was homeless living under a bridge shooting herion. Being around such scum bags in the world I have also been raped and manipulated into prostution, eventually I wanted to die and with no luck of killing myself when i tried I turned to family that already turned their back on me (which seemed like everyone did at that time) and it is hard feeling like you have no one that cares about your well being.. so i got permission to sleep in my dads truck then eventually the house and so I worked back into normal everday life but most of my scares are emotional and a few physical. i didnt even graduate 6th grade but here I am graduating college. my family always thought I would be dead or in prison, I actually thought the same for a while now they brag about me to their friends and I actually enjoy it and feel somewhat normal =).

[sheri]

Heather
wow! thank you so much for sharing your story. it amazing the stories all around on any given sunday and we have no idea what someone has gone through and experienced. i am so sorry for the pain that you went through and so grateful you have found your way back and amazed that you graduated from college and a good mother. thank you so much for being a part of college and career and taking off the mask like you said and letting the real you and your story be told. brave lady

[Heather]

Thanks Sheri, that means alot to me, and being able to take off that mask is a relief and that is why I love this church and the people that make up the church so much. I have never been able to tell people much of my past not even my close friends because I don't want thier perception of me to change negativily. I enjoy listining to other peoples hard situations because it helps us all know that everthing is not always perfect and its Ok.

[MC]

There is a great play that was written by Thornton Wilder based on John 5 (the text we will be looking at this Sunday at SVA) about a man hanging out at the pool of Bethesda...

In Brennan Manning's Book "Abba's Child" he relates the story (I will read it on Sunday too :-)

The play tells of a physician who comes periodically to the pool of Bethesda, hoping to be the first in the water and healed of his melancholy when the angel appears and troubles the water. Everybody at the pool also hopes to be the first in the water and thereby healed of his malady. The angel appears but blocks the physician at the moment he is ready to step into the pool and be healed.
Angel: "Draw back, physician, this moment is not for you."
Physician: "Angelic visitor, I pray thee, listen to my prayer.
Angel: "Healing is not for you."
Physician: "Surely, surely, the angels are wise. Surely, O Prince, you are not deceived by my apparent wholeness. Your eyes can see the nets in which my wings are caught; the sin into which all my endeavors sink half-performed cannot be concealed from you."
Angel: "I know."
..................
Physician: "Oh, in such an hour was I born, and doubly fearful to me is the flaw in my heart. Must I drag my shame, Prince and Singer, all my days more bowed than my neighbor?"
Angel: "Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love’s service only the wounded soldiers can serve. Draw back."
Later, the person who enters the pool first and was healed rejoices in his good fortune then turns to the physician before leaving and said:
"But come with me first, an hour only, to my home. My son is lost in dark thoughts. I -- I do not understand him, and only you have ever lifted his mood. Only an hour . . . my daughter, since her child has died, sits in the shadow. She will not listen to us but she will listen to you."

powerful eh...the line that just nails me is...

"without your wound, where would your power be?"

The reality is that the church is comprised of people who have wounds...the question for the church today is.."Will we be honest, as Heather has? Because in truth, a church that isn't honest about the reality of who we are will never be a church filled with grace, healing and power...

It is so crucial to allow God to mend the broken areas...to experience the incredible love of God for us in light of our mis-steps and past...that is the beauty of grace, we receive it when we don't deserve it...

So then, as the masks come off, the power flows in, and transformation and grace flow out.

Monty