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Carlene Hill Byron
Published in Daybreak Devotions and Nighttime Prayers
avatarCarlene Hill Byron3 min read  

The Scars Remain ...

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Then [Jesus] said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!” My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed. – John 20:27–28 (NLT)

We all remember that Thomas refused to recognize Jesus until he’d seen His scars. We often forget that Jesus also showed His scars to most of the other disciples. Mary recognized Jesus in the garden for who He was. But when Jesus passed into a locked room to visit fear-cloistered disciples, He knew that His miraculous entry hadn’t convinced them it was, in fact, Him. He showed them His scars, and that’s when “they were filled with joy when they saw the Lord.” (John 20:20)

Why did so many people who had lived and worked so closely with Jesus need to see His scars to know Him? Why do we so often review our own scars?

Scars don’t make anyone’s identity, but scars do show how this world has marked a life. People live with physical scars, like the mark that remains on my left knee from a fall when I was a teenager. People live with emotional scars. We might recognize these in the wary way a trauma survivor approaches a new encounter. People live with spiritual scars, too, like the “moral injury” a soldier might carry after being ordered to kill civilians in today’s asymmetric wars.

People are scared because we live in this world, and this world inflicts harm on people. We know God is able to miraculously heal, and yet for some reason He leaves some of us—including His own resurrected Son—only healed in part, with the scars of our suffering evident to anyone.

We never know in this lifetime why that is. All we know for certain is that God is, God loves us, and God empowers us by the Holy Spirit to live as overcomers who bring glory to God. Maybe God leaves our scars to remind us that we’ll never be strong enough to overcome this world ourselves. Only as we’re born of God are we powerful to overcome this world … and even His perfect, overcoming Son still bears the scars that this world inflicts.

Questions for Reflection:

1. Why do you think so many people who had lived and worked so closely with Jesus needed to see His scars to know Him?

2. Why do we so often review our own scars?

3. How can we better serve Jesus by examining our scar-filled past?

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    Carlene Hill Byron

    Carlene started writing professionally when she was 20 years old and has finally agreed with God that she’s a writer, not just a “hack for hire.” She has worked as a journalist, a ghostwriter, a grant writer, the editor of New England Church Life and The New England Christian, a marketing project manager, and a fundraiser for nonprofit organizations. Her award-winning marketing communications describe traffic signal systems, roads, bridges, and water treatment plants. She’s written about Australian opals, Indian wedding wear, North American hockey memorabilia, and how to repair antique steam-powered farm equipment. She’s curious enough to explore almost anything, and grateful that wherever she goes, God is already there. She looks across woods and a marsh from her writing desk in small town Maine, just a few miles from her family’s third-generation wild blueberry farm.

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