Beautiful scars

"I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived."--Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Check out this blog for refreshing insight on wasting time wishing for the past when we should instead be grateful for the present and for how the past has shaped our individual stories. Jamie, a missionary in Costa Rica, on the beauty of adversity:

"In my foolishness, I plead to God to take away the broken parts, make it like it was, like none of this ever happened. But it seems, in my haste to forget life’s biggest challenges, I would erase all of the best parts of the story. Because where I see a heart, broken and aching for the poor, He sees a heart, salvaged from materialism, and Restored to a better condition. And where I see a marriage, broken by every kind of selfishness, He sees a couple, raised from the brink of death, and Restored to a better place. And where I see all the scars left by living a dirty, messed up life, He sees that what was once broken is now made whole. Our scars are simply evidence of what has been Restored. They get to tell the Story of where our lives have been touched by God."

And here I am learning from her challenges and her honesty. The inner or outer scars of adversity can make us more beautiful if we only shift our perspectives to see it that way. You never know how your response to trials might strengthen and encourage others, all the while restoring and teaching you as well.