Here's Pastor Dave McDowell's weekly devotional that he sends out to members of his church. Dave is my brother and serves as the Music Minister at
Stewartstown UMC in PA.
Some wounds never completely heal,
and because of that we are made whole.
I asked a friend out to lunch a few weeks ago.
I had never been out to lunch with him before.
He's more than thirty years older than me,
and until now,
I have seen him more as an adult figure in my life
than as a friend.
He has lived a good, long life,
filled with many difficulties like anyone else,
but also filled with countless blessings.
He is now a widower
and is learning how to live again as a single man,
no easy feat after decades of marriage.
It was somewhere between the appetizer and entree,
that he began to tell me his story.
He met her in his teens,
when he was a strapping, handsome young man.
In a culture far removed from the one we know today,
he courted her.
Although he did not come from wealth or position,
he was a hard worker and a man of the soil....
and he knew she was the one with whom he wanted to spend his life.
They married when he was 18
and soon after, they were expecting their first child.
But while he was starting a family,
Hitler was starting a war,
a war that would soon demand his involvement.
He was shipped to basic training
to train for an occupation that he had never imagined,
Within weeks, he was on a boat headed for Europe.
Since wars don't offer tutorial programs.
upon reaching the continent,
he found himself on the front lines,
sharing foxholes with other young men,
whose lives had similarly been interrupted.
There were bone chilling rainy nights in foxholes
where his body experienced a coldness he had never before felt.
There were times when he saw buddies die before his very eyes,
and wondered if this is how his story would end.
The allied forces pressed forward
and one day he found himself in the attic of a German farmhouse,
serving as a watchman.
That's where the war caught up with him.
He was struck in the skull with shrapnel from mortal fire.
He was transported to Paris to an army hospital.
But for the grace of God and a battle helmet,
he life was spared.
Doctors told him if the shrapnel had invaded another half inch,
he would not have made it.
And so he returned home,
to the family that he had started,
and to create the family that would be.
Seventy years later,
as he was having lunch with me.
He showed me the scar,
a wound not completely healed after seventy years.
Seventy years of life.....
births, anniversaries, holidays,
illnesses, deaths, accidents, challenges
Seventy years of additional children,
grandchildren, great grandchildren,
all who would not be here,
if that shrapnel had penetrated one half inch deeper.
And a scar to remind how life is so mysterious, precious, and fragile.
He has had seventy years
to experience a gratitude that might not otherwise be......
Seventy years to live a life
that could just as easily have been taken away.
Seventy years of passing on life
to others whom God has purposed to be here.
Scars from wounds remind us of
who we were, who we are,
and who we can become.
Sometimes, I wonder,
why Jesus bears the wounds from His sacrifice
in His resurrected body.
Theologians offer many reasons
for a question that only God can answer.....
perhaps they are a sign of eternal wonder to all in the heavenly realm?
maybe the wounds are the jewels that a loving, sacrificing Savior prefers to wear?
might they be the medals that a victor wears?
or
could they be the proof that the Son offers when He comes to judge the world?
What about us?
Will we have scars in heaven?
Imagine the father who slaved in mines his entire life
bearing a wound on his back from the countless hours he worked to provide for his children....
Think of a soldier who did die in battle
bearing the marks of the bullet that struck his heart......
Maybe the mother who prayed and wept for her children
will have scarred knees and beautiful eyes that will speak of joyful sorrow......
Scars of painful and troubling circumstances in this life
becoming badges of honor in the next.
Perhaps, the next time you think about a physical or an emotional scar that you bear,
you will see it as a jewel, a badge, a testimony.
Think upon your scars,
and when you do,
give thanks to God for how He continues to heal.
And please take time to thank a veteran this weekend,
maybe even take him or her to lunch.
Who knows what you will learn between the appetizer and the entree?
"and with
His stripes, we are healed"
Isaiah 53:5b
