It
was the dreaded day…the day we received our school pictures which had been
taken several weeks earlier. Most of my Junior High friends were excited about
the prospects of writing flirtatious notes on the back of their pictures and
distributing them to the opposite sex. The girls were especially giddy to
receive their own portrait back and didn’t mind saying how beautiful they found
themselves, not having developed that false sense of humility and
self-criticism which would not become socially acceptable until high school.
Most
everyone was excited, except the few who couldn’t care less. Not me. I was
terrified. As a teenager who suffered from severe acne, which could not be
hidden no matter how much tinted Clearasil® I applied in the morning, picture
day was tantamount to horror day! I dreaded it from one year to the next
throughout my teenage years. When I received my pictures they were shoved
inside my desk or the back of my notebook. I didn’t look at them for fear
someone would see them. I couldn’t stand the embarrassment. I would take them
home, unopened until my mother asked for them. She would always open them with
a smile and reassure me that I would “grow out of it.” I never did.
Finally,
my last year of high school a nurse in our church told my mom about a new experimental
vaccine. A culture would be grown, using my facial blemishes as the base, and
then a vaccine made which should help with the acne. My mom signed me up and
every week I visited the home of a local nurse to get my injection. The remedy
was almost miraculous. Within a few months my face was clearer than it had been
since I entered puberty.
But
the miracle wasn’t perfect. As my face began to clear of the massive pimples
which had been all I could see in the mirror for years, I realized there was a
new form of embarrassment looking back at me…scars. My face was covered with
deep, rough, pockmarks. My heart was broken…the cure seemed incomplete…I no
longer had the pimples, but everyone would always know…by simply looking at my
face…where they had once raged on the battlefield of my face.
That
was over 40 years ago. The scars are still there. They will always be there.
There are occasionally days which go by when I don’t think about them…but not
many. They are a constant reminder of what was.
I
tell this story, as uncomfortable as it is, to remind myself and those of you
who read it, that bad actions and decisions leave scars. Sometimes they are our
decisions and sometimes they belong to other people. Sometimes they are
innocent mistakes and sometimes they are rebellious acts…but few of them will
come and go without leaving a mark…a scar.
Is
that cause for dismay, hopelessness, dark despair? It could be…if we allow it
to drag us to a place where there is no light. But it doesn’t have to be that
way. I learned a little trick years ago that helps me when I look into the
mirror. Except when absolutely necessary, I don’t look at the scars, I look
into my eyes. When I look into my own eyes, I try to see hope and light and the
future…not the past. Do I still have scars…yes…I just choose not to dwell on
them or let them control my life.
I’m
assuming most of you have some scars too. Maybe not the kind I’ve written about
today. Perhaps they are much more serious, the kind on the inside that make
your heart ache or that just won’t go away no matter how hard you try. For
whatever it’s worth, here is my sage advice: Stop trying. Stop looking. Stop
thinking about the scars. Look into your own eyes. Look for light, for hope,
for the future. If it’s been a while since you looked, you may have to dig a
bit, take some layers of hurt off and lay them aside, but keep looking…there’s
light in there somewhere…and hope.
