Category: faith

You’d judge me a sadist to associate beauty with scars, but hear me out first before you strike the mallet of judgment. Scars have been underrated and mostly looked down upon with repulsion, hidden away like an unwanted (mis)fortune. We hate scars because they arouse painful, loathsome memories. Scars are aching reminders of a past that cuts down our pride in the present, but they are meant for so much more than that.

June of 2016 was such a defining moment in the history of our lives, mummy was diagnosed to have a meningioma and was taken up for a craniotomy for which she had to go bald. As Nick Vujicic said, “If you can’t get a miracle then become one”, what was meant to break us only made us stronger. She recuperated astonishingly fast after the surgery and within a month joined her rigorous routine as the Principal of K.V CRPF Gandhinagar.

“It is not during the day that the light-house shines the brightest to guide the ships, sometimes darkness is essential to shine the brightest and fulfill the purpose.”

The scar on her scalp is a reminder of the season of darkness in which His light shined forth and reflected through her life, making her a reluctant lighthouse when all she probably wanted to be was a candle on the table. Her scar is a reminder of the strength she drew from God and that she’d have never know the boundaries of her strength till her limits were tested and she was pushed into the unknown waters. Unknown waters scare the best of us because they are like a rude awakening call to remind us that we are not in control and beckon us to rely in the sovereignty of God. Every scar is a flag to His faithfulness and His grace. It’s a reminder that we thrive today because we survived then because His grace was sufficient.

But for Goliath, David would have never known or realized the seeds of greatness within him and his destiny of being the giant slayer. The stones inside your palm may be small but your giants will fall because it’s not by might or by power but by His Spirit and greater is the One living inside of you than he who is in the world. He sees the beauty in our scars because He has seen the transformation on the potter’s wheel. The scars summon us to step out in faith to step beyond the confines of our logical reasoning.

PS: It’s been just over a year since mummy’s surgery and she has bounced back stronger than before into what has been a very happening year for us and her life & testimony continue to be an inspiration.

He clothes the lilies of the field, cares to feed the sparrows, calls the stars by name, owns the cattle on a thousand hills, but all these came forth with just a command. He spoke and they were. He spoke and nothingness gave way to creation. Yet all this awe inspiring beauty surrounding us came into being with just a verbal command without flexing any divine muscle. They came about as a part of mass production, He spoke and the oceans teemed with life, birds decorated the skyline and the millions of species of living things came about.
But you and I are not a part of the verbal command and production factory. We are custom made, we’re His handiwork, we bear His fingerprints. He designed us in the womb and supervised the development of our formless embryo. From the 2 celled being to the 100 trillion being reading this, He has monitored the entire process of growth. Why so much interest in one isolated thing of this vast creation?
Because you and I were made in His image to reflect His glory, no wonder we bear His fingerprints. After 5 days of intense creative activity the Father finally said, “Let us (summoning the other members of the trinity) make man in Our image, according to our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).  What is man? Dust of the earth + Divine breath; fashioned in the image of Yahweh, yet made a little lower than the angels but crowned with glory and honor (Psalms 8:5), His workmanship (Handiwork), created in Christ Jesus for good works (Ephesians 2:10).

The next time you’re hemmed in by troubles all around and your hope gives way to despair then look out of the window, notice the sparrows and remind yourself of the Father who feeds them, how much more will He not do for someone He created in His own image? As I write this, I’m reminded of the lyrics from the song “Reach” by Peter Furler:

“You hold the weight of the world
Still I don’t slip through your hands
Your love is bigger
Than just an ocean built by man
I fall again and again
But You whisper, “You’re still mine”
You feel the pain of the world
But You never push mine aside”