Your Scars Are Your Trophies (Wear Them with Pride)

Hey everyone!

I know the title of today's post looks as if it's going to be one of those posts but I want you to stay with me because I want to offer you some comfort and support after an amazing message I watched last night from Pastor Steven Furtick...

No More Nails

In his message, Steven was walking about how Jesus was showing Thomas a sign of how, though there were no more nails in His hands, His body was still scarred by what He had been through before His death!

It reminds me that no matter what I've been through up until this point, pain can either prohibit me from my destiny, or pain can propel me into it through God's power. When it propels me, I get to let it become my testimony of times when, though all hell broke loose in and around me, God was right here all along.

Enjoy: -

Watched it?

Ready for some more inspiration?

Good.

As I watched this message I realised that all the times that I was hiding away from church social groups, all the times that I was hiding away from Life Groups, were all times where I was in actual fact hiding my scars from other people. This challenges me so much right now because my scars are nothing to be ashamed of, they are simply reminders of how God's power showed up at the times when I needed it most.

Steven said that until you've been scarred by life or by other people, you won't really find yourself relating to or experiencing the love of God as fully as you do afterwards.

I am greatly comforted by a message like this (ED - and you know what that means, don't you?) because it reminds me that I should, as the hood ornament for my life, be proudly displaying every single scratch, scrape or scar on my soul as evidence of how God lifted me each and every time that I fell.

For too long have I been ashamed of my scars... well THE SHAME STOPS HERE!!!

I am proud to write so freely on my blog about my struggles, especially my feelings for a certain person, because they are a testimony that no matter what I have been through, God has been through it with me.

I need to stop covering up my scars when I'm around people and opening myself up like I do on social media has indeed forced me to come to terms with just how costly it is with deciding to live like this, scars bared and all.

In fact, it reminds me of a song: -

This was a song that, when I first heard, I related to so much because I wanted to be like that; my heart tattooed on my sleeve. As a result, here I am passing four or five years writing on a blog that is my testimony and every time I open up another wound, the emotions bleed out and the healing sets in.

You see, because of my feelings for a certain person I have done a lot of bleeding emotionally, a lot and I'm not ashamed of that, I never will be. Each tear shed was heard and caught by Heaven such that, now I'm stronger for it and becoming the man that God needs me to be in the future.

I told my L.G.L. last night that my scars today become my stories tomorrow, so it is with great gladness that I rake over them to ensure that God's full healing power comes in and does the work necessary in me to make sure that I can withstand what tomorrow throws at me.

Final Thought

I hope that I am inspiring at least one person with this heartfelt post because that has been my mission statement all along and, thanks to the likes of Pastor Steven and a great many other preachers, I am learning that my scars need not be hidden for all to see.

It is in the scar tissue itself that other people see that heals them and shows them how powerful God is the moment that we stop limiting Him and let Him apply His restoration work to full effect.

I'm not ashamed of my scars, because they show me that God was here all along, through every time I cried myself to sleep, every time I got so upset I thought about taking life from myself.

I didn't.

Obviously.

I'm still here to live to tell the tale of how The Lanky Penguin, aka me, was not broken by every mishap, I was not broken by every misspoken word and I was not broken by every slip, trip and fall or else I would not be here today tapping out key after key after key hoping that I am inspiring somebody to just keep... on... fighting!

Shock, drop & awe!