If your scars could talk, what stories would they tell?

Scars. You have a few. So do I. When writing our stories, we’ll almost certainly need to examine one or more of the wounds that caused our scars.

Keep in mind that a scar is not the same as a wound.

A wound is an injury, a laceration, a gash, a blow, a rip. Some wounds are superficial, but others are deep and agonizing.

On the other hand, a scar is “a mark left where a wound or injury or sore has healed” (Oxford American Dictionary).

Read that again: A scar is what you have after healing has occurred. After the bleeding has stopped. After the scab has fallen off.

A scar is evidence of healing.

When we think of a scar, too often we associate it with something damaged, defective. A disfigurement, an impairment.

But isn’t it better to recognize that a scar is something that has healed?

Think of your scar as an emblem declaring you’re repaired, a symbol of surviving, evidence your wound has mended.

So I ask: 

If your scars could talk, what stories would they tell?

Most of us are good at keeping our wounds and scars secret—maybe even from ourselves, but a good memoirist will not leave them in hiding.

Dani Shapiro says, “What we ignore, we ignore at our own peril. What we embrace with courage, perseverance, humility, and clarity, becomes our instrument of illumination.”

“Our instrument of illumination.” 

A good memoirist will

invite God to stand alongside—or maybe inside—

and help peel back layers,

get out a magnifying glass,

connect the dots,

and discover the deeper, broader, bigger story.

A good memoirist will make time

to examine the chapters of his life

in which God used wounds

to turn his story in a different

and better direction.

That reminds me of Bev Murrill’s words about Romans 8:28, “Paul said all things work together for good for people who love the Lord and are called according to His purposes. That doesn’t mean what happened is good, but that God can use even the most terrible things if we will let Him treat the wounds and heal them.”

C.S. Lewis said, “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” Your job as a memoirist is to look back and discover that extraordinary destiny God has been working out for you—a destiny you couldn’t have experienced if it weren’t for your hardship, your wound. You have a scar to prove it.

Search for answers to Thornton Wilder’s question: “Without your wounds where would you be?”

How did God transform your wounds into scars?

Who and what did God use to bring healing? 

• A doctor, counselor, or medicine,
• a Bible passage or Bible study, 
• a book, 
• prayer, 
• a strategically placed friend or relative,
• time and distance,
• writing or journaling.

God has many ways of turning wounds into scars.

Bev Murrill says God is capable of “turning ugly gaping wounds into scars that serve as badges of honor and trophies of the grace of God at work in me.”

What badges of honor

and trophies of God’s grace

will you include in your memoir?

Someone needs to know your story.

Someone needs the hope your story can offer.

If your scars could talk,

what stories would they tell?