Scarred but Beautiful

“We all have our scars––most gained by foolishness,

but the ones that count come from putting another’s safety above our own.” c.e.hollis

 The Shape of Us

By Elece Hollis

Every leaf on every tree, every plant and flower bears its unique difference and yet is recognizable. With the help of a field guide to trees, we can tell most any tree by its leaf. These leaves are begonia––each alike, and yet each possessing a set of unique characteristics. Look at  them––the veins, the colors, the edges, and the tears.

Every leaf is an individual of the plant colored by its soil and nutrients, healthy or pale, large or small, and each bears eventually some scars. We tend to want every leaf to be perfect and fit. We tend to call out for the boldest, the softest, the youngest, the straightest, the curviest. We tend to call beautiful what is the brightest, the slightest, the largest, the smallest (hypocrites we).

We call the finest and prettiest what has the least blemishes, the smallest and faintest scars. We don’t like our scars, our wrinkles, our gray hairs, our freckles. Oh, but aren’t they what makes us who we are? Don’t they show how much life we have experienced?

Jesus chose to keep his scars. His hands still have the marks where the nails were hammered through. Those scars are beautiful. True, many of our scars are there because we did foolish things or because another hurt us. Jesus’s scars are there because He loved us so. It’s the same love that chose to create each of us an original, each shape of us unique, and all of nature touched with the lovely essence of his hand.