Scars Are Not Flaws

I had fallen into a deep sleep after a very long day of drifting in the sea of contemplation. The weight of the world had seemed as if it were on my shoulders, which would have, incidentally, explained the excruciating pain better than an injury that had occurred so many years before. I had felt broken in many ways, and as though my life had been placed on some sort of hold—suspended in time by a series of circumstances that were not within my control. In that moment, I realized that a feeling of helplessness quickly leads to a feeling of hopelessness. So, feeling defeated, I began to gather up my broken pieces and retreated into the dark solitude known as sleep. After a few restless hours of wrestling with nightmares that one would normally associate with fever, I was abruptly jarred awake by a voice in my dream that seemed to linger into my awakened state: “Your scars are not flaws, and until you learn this, you will never truly heal.” Startled, I tried to quickly find my bearings and figure out where I was and to whom I had been listening. Once my heart had stopped racing and I had assumed it to have been a dream, I began to realize how philosophically and cathartically soothing those words— which had emerged from nowhere— had been. And, suddenly, I didn’t feel as broken as before.

Scars are inevitable. We will all experience them in one way or another, whether they be physical or emotional. But, rather than regarding them as mere misguided marks, we need to realize that they, too, are significant; they are part of the cartographical design of our journey, even if they aren’t explained in the legend. Sometimes, they are detours, other times, they are shortcuts. But, in the end, they are always part of the paths that have led us to where we are today. Don’t erase them nor disregard them as artifacts upon a map, or else you might never move forward. It's important to also note that scars are not wounds in the present tense… instead, they are signs of what once were, now healed. Bandaging them as if they are still wounds or camouflaging them as if they are flaws is gratuitous and will only prevent or hasten the true healing that needs to occur within the soul. Learn from your wounds, embrace your scars, and know that neither are flaws. Instead, they are symbols of great hope and great healing.