The thing about life is that…it’s going to happen. It happens to all of us. Some of us make it through relatively unscathed, but for the majority of us? We fight our battles and get our wounds.
I’ve had to battle and scrap my way through this life in every single one of my 27 years. Not a day has gone by that’s been easy or handed to me. I was born into trauma, and it hasn’t gotten easier since.
I’ve been beaten down, assaulted, abused by…more people than I’d care to admit, battled (and battling) health issues, and now my kids are battling those same health issues. Everything has been a battle. Nothing has come easily.
I’m no stranger to scars. Surgical, self inflicted, and invisible…I’ve got them all. Some worse than others, some deeper, some more meaningful…all with stories. Every scar has a story. Invisible or not, an emotional scar vs a physical scar…they’re all equally impactful.
That line, beautiful scars on critical veins, has been circling my head the past few days. Maybe there’s something to it, or maybe there’s a lot to it. Maybe it means everything.
The idea that our scars can be beautiful, that they make us who we are, that they tell a story. It’s such a deep and personal thing, but we’re all created from this madness we call life.
We carry our scars on critical veins. I know I do. Some have certainly felt more deadly, more life threatening…more critical. And I’m not talking about the physical ones.
Maybe the scars we carry, the ones etched onto our hearts, are beautiful. Maybe it’s the most beautiful thing that we have, because it’s the very thing that shaped us. This life, our experiences…no one gets out of it without at least some scars.
And maybe we need to learn to love ourselves through our imperfections instead of being so critical of them, hateful toward them.
Maybe, the most critical scars are the most beautiful. They’re the ones that push us, challenge us…force us to grow in ways that we don’t want to, that are uncomfortable.
I have a lot of scars, trust me. Some of them feel so fresh that they might as well still be bleeding. Those are the ones no one can see, the ones etched into my soul. The ones that have broken me down so desperately, I thought I might never breathe again.
I wish I could live a day in someone else’s shoes, so I can see just how they see my. To see what it looks like through the eyes of someone who loves me, no matter what. My husband is one of those people. I’ll never understand why, but he loves me so unconditionally.
When I feel my worst, when I feel my ugliest, most unlovable…he is there, still loving me. Looking at me with that look that I can feel love coming from him. I don’t deserve it. I really don’t.
But maybe, just maybe, one day I can learn to see myself how he sees me, and love myself….scars and all. I think that’s something we all deserve.
Our scars don’t define us. They shape us, yes. We can grow and learn from them, choose a different direction or take a new path because of them, but they don’t define us.
Our scars are beautiful, just like our stories. We are worth loving through our brokenness and our pain. We are worth seeing.
And we deserve to love ourselves, too.
Your scars don’t define you. Not the visible ones, and not the invisible ones. You can overcome the pain from your scars on even the most critical of veins. It will take work and commitment, but you can do it. You can feel better.
You can heal. If you allow yourself, you can heal.
You don’t have to do it alone.