by Tammy Phillips
July 8, 2024
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds [healing their pain and comforting their sorrow]. Psalms 147:3 (AMP)
I shaved my legs for a doctor’s appointment where gel would be inserted into my knees to help provide a cushion that time and weight had worn to nothing. I ran a razor over my knee and experienced a little resistance from a past scar. It brought up old hurts and deceptions. I thought more, “Did I shave my legs for this? Just to experience the pain of a shot.” My doctor does not care, but I do.
The summer when I was eight, I catapulted off the back of a pick-up truck. My knee hit the trailer hitch and burst wide open. It was nothing that God, stitches, and time could not mend. Remember, I mentioned it was summer. Summer on my grandparent’s farm meant dusty, dirt road explorations, fast riding bikes, and a multitude of adventures. Within a week, or two of my first accident, I had another and crashed my cycle. My original slash unfolded, and a second gash also appeared on my knee. The injuries from my carelessness and fearless-running-wide-open as a young girl scarred me for life. My gaping wounds left a “not-so-beauty” mark the size of a half dollar with a wide arrow shooting out of it. After my knee did not heal perfectly, the enemy of my soul tried to tell me that no boy would ever love me because of my defaced cap. I believed those voices in my head for way too long until I heard a different story from a loving Father.
As I shaved over my scar, I remembered my wound was healed and that the pain associated with it had long departed. Holy Spirit brought to mind Psalm 147:3, “He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.” God stitches, mends, and wraps up our body, soul, and spirit wounds, pains, hurts, injuries, and sorrows. He is Jehovah Rapha that heals and stitches us back together. And yes, I did shave my legs for that reminder.
Perhaps, God did not heal my knee exactly the way I thought it should look, but it was whole, healed, and completely mended, and so am I. Life leaves ugly scars, but God always heals when invited in. It may not be my way, but it will always be Yahweh!
Do we not want fractured relationships restored to blissful beginnings? Isn’t it our hope that no one experiences brokenness in any shape, form, or fashion? However, we live in a broken world and bad things happen, and they scar us. The great news is God is always faithful. “He himself bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains… He was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds.” [Isa 53:3-5 CSB emphasis]
Did I shave my legs for this…reminder? Yes.
I enCOURGE you to embrace your scars as pains healed. A scar is a mark remaining after the injured tissue has healed. Do not allow the scars of your live to remain pain in your life. If you have to shave your legs or your head to remind yourself that YOU ARE HEALED, then do it. You were not meant to carry around the pain of your past.
Live. Breathe! Be embracing your scars.
Complete in Him 