Before my husband Kyle and I were ever engaged, he had a severe gallbladder attack and had to have the nasty little thing removed, and it was exactly that: a nasty little thing. What should have taken just a couple of hours turned into six. His family and I sat quietly in the waiting room, the silence being broken only by the ring of the telephone indicating to us the doctor had news. For the first few hours, it seemed the phone rang on the hour every hour, the speaker on the other line giving us increasingly uncomfortable updates. After several failed attempts to remove the gallbladder laparoscopicly, the doctor decided to go about it the old-fashioned way: slice open the skin and remove the organ. Of course, this meant more time in the OR, a longer recovery, and one heck of a scar.
I remember distinctly a moment after Kyle (finally) had the drainage tube and the staples removed. He was standing in front of a mirror with his shirt lifted up staring intently at the scar that now very noticeably covers a section of his abdomen. He turned toward me and asked in a somber tone, "Does this scar make me unattractive?" My heart sank into the pit of my stomach, uneasily settling there as I searched for words that would heal. Was that scar in its fresh, tender, reddened state something I considered ugly? Absolutely. Did it make the man I loved and wanted to share my life with unattractive? Absolutely not.
We all have scars. Some of us have physical marks that smudge our flesh, reminding us of searing pain, trouble, or anguish. Some of us are pocked with emotional and mental scars that limit us in our pursuit of healthy lives filled with joy. We all have moments from our past that darken the light of our futures. We have all, at some point, carried blemishes, and what is more burdensome than the weight all of our imperfections combined is the question we ask over and over: "Does this make me unlovable?" The answer is quite simply this: no.
The truth about scars is yes, they are ugly, but we don't have to let their appearances in our lives dictate the way we look at ourselves. When we see our defects staring back at us from a mirror, we are flooded with feelings of inadequacy, doubt, and regret. It's easier to believe we are unwanted than it is to see the beauty beyond the scars. Please, though, consider this: does one torn corner of a hundred-dollar bill decrease its worth? Does one missing petal from the bud of a rose subtract from its beauty? Stop wondering if your scars make you unforgivably repulsive, and wonder instead why you are giving them so much power. Look squarely in the face at the person in the mirror and ask the only question that truly matters, "Does one ugly moment define my entire life?"
The answer is quite simply this: no.
