A few years ago, my eyebrows were in bad shape. I needed to get them waxed but my appointment wasn’t for a few weeks. So, I stopped in at a salon in the mall. They said they could take me and pointed to a girl in the back of the shop who would be with me in a minute.

Now, you can always tell when someone is new at something. They give you a nervous smile and all of their movements are hesitant. That is exactly how this girl behaved. But by the time I realized all of this, I was already in the chair, with my head back. It was too late for me to say, “Never mind.” It was too late for my eyebrows.

When she was finished, she handed me a mirror to look at her work. The skin around my eyebrows was inflamed, and wait—where were my eyebrows? Ok, it wasn’t that bad, but almost. They were thinner than they had ever been. I didn’t know what to say because there wasn’t much left to work with. So, I told myself they would grow back. I thanked her, paid at the front desk, and left.

But a bad eyebrow wax, isn’t even the point of my story. When I got home, after the swelling had gone down, I looked in the mirror and found a scar. Just above the corner of my left eye—where my eyebrow used to be—was a line about a half an inch long of previously sown together skin. I leaned in closer to the mirror to look at it.

I never had stitches.

Not that I had a scrape-less childhood, but up until that point, I didn’t think I had any scars. So, I called my mom to ask her about it.

“Oh yeah, when you were three you fell and had to get stitches.” She said casually, like she was telling me what she was making for dinner. And I had one of those weird “my childhood wasn’t all magical like I thought” moments.

I had a scar. And I didn’t even know it.

Do you have any scars?

I have a feeling that if you do, you would agree that the worst ones are rarely physical. In fact, I would bet that even if you are like me and have no visible scars (sans a close eyebrow wax), you have your own fair share of emotional ones.

I know I do.

They just seem to be a part of life. Just as I had thought I had no real physical scars to speak of, there were emotional ones I carried around for years before realizing they were there. They had been weighing me down, and I didn’t even know it.

Have you ever noticed, there is no age discrimination with scars? Some of our deepest ones are forged in our most innocent and trusting moments. And until we name them, they linger just below the surface of our feelings—causing us to be guarded even when we are safe, and fearful when we need to be brave.

While physical scars eventually heal over, the tricky thing about emotional ones is that they very rarely ever do. Sometimes they fool us into thinking they are, when really all we see is a thin layer of skin just waiting for the right circumstance to tear open again.

We need healing.

So many of us, walking wounded around this world, need complete healing. So what if I told you I have found this healing? What if I said that all the healing we need can be found in the scars of another? Sounds a little crazy, right?

For those of us who are believers, it is the week leading up to Easter. As a child, I was told the story of Christ’s crucifixion and His resurrection. I was told Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross for my sins so that I wouldn’t be separated from God. I was told that if I confessed my sin and I believed in Jesus, I would go to heaven when I die. But that is not the whole story.

In I Peter 2:24, we are told, “By his wounds you have been healed.” When Jesus died on the cross He broke the power of all of our brokenness, sin, and shame. All we need to do is to ask for Him to enter into the places we are scarred, and ask Him to heal us. For some of us, it will be as instant as the healing of the bleeding women (Luke 8:42-44). For many of us, though, our healing will be a journey in which we get to know Jesus and His love more fully.

Jesus said that His whole reason for coming into this world was to give us full life (John 10:10). Walking around bearing the weight of our scars isn’t full life. Wherever you are at with Jesus—near or far—know that today, you can experience His healing. And if you have never heard this before, I invite you to find a Good Friday and Easter service this weekend, so that you can hear and experience more.

Do you have any weird physical scars?

Do you long for healing for scars that others can’t see?

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