Loud Scars

About a month after the Mr. and I got married, we spent the afternoon in my parent's pool in effort to beat the Oklahoma Summer heat.  We were playing some pretty intense pool volleyball when the ball went out of the pool and my sweet new husband jumped out to retrieve it.  Except, he didn't jump at all.  He attempted to get out by climbing out via their very-tiny-in-comparison-to-my-over-6-foot-man, something he had never attempted before.  
It didn't go well for him.
Far from well.
The next thing I knew I turned around to see my man stuck.  Not going backwards but certainly not going forwards either.  Finally he dislodges himself enough to fall back down into the water, but not without scraping the entire front of his shin on the concrete sidewalk first.  I mean-picture the worst carpet burn going on for quite a long distance, but use a concrete sidewalk instead of carpet.
Once he hit the water he didn't really even say anything to me, just had this look of absolute terror on his face.  His nearly amputated leg combined with the chlorine was about to do the poor guy in.  Once he got out of the pool and the air hit the wound, it was an absolute blood bath.  I'm refraining from the use of pictures so have no fear, this isn't about to take a R-rated turn here.

His leg today looks as if he had surgery on it once a long time ago.  The scar from that pool incident is very, very prominent and runs the length of his leg between his knee cap to the top of his ankle.  

Anytime he wears shorts, it shows in a huge way.

I've never had a run in with the pool ladder, but I've got my own set of "loud scars".

I distinctly remember a time in my life not so long ago that I had to decide if I was going to be "too real" with people or not.  The mistakes I had made, the struggles I had endured, the dark times I had survived-would I share them with people?  Or keep them hidden for fear of what other people thought in an effort to "save face"?  It was a raw and vulnerable place to come to.  But at the end of the day, those places are all evidences of God's working in my life.  Undeserved favor.  New mercies.  Redemption at best.  I would not-could not-hide that.  

It's in that place I've experienced the most ministry with other people.  The deepest connections.  So I make a choice to let go of the scary-ness that comes with being vulnerable and transparent with people.  These days I'm more tend to wear my scars loudly.  Those scars are reminders of a place that hurt me, so so deeply, but Jesus healed it.  Those scars may not be pretty.  They may not be "ideal", or what I had intended to have in my life, but they are also Jesus' fingerprints all over my life.

Scars aren't so bad after all.