Scarface

            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.