Scars of Victory!

 

Watching the Remembrance Day march-past at the UK Cenotaph in Whitehall, London, once again today, I am moved by the faces of the veterans in parade. Regathered after last year's pandemic shutdown, the serried ranks of the comrades, men and women, showed faces beaming with a sense of achievement. As the bands of the Coldstream Guards played wartime tunes they marched past in their thousands, medals jingling, berets askew, arms swinging, chests thrust forward with pride. Yet, for many, the march was a test of endurance. I saw several double amputees in full regalia tottering forward on their artificial limbs but keeping in step with their colleagues. There were guide dogs for blind veterans and several young people in uniform accompanying others. Some marchers were bearing their scars of war so bravely it seems that they were almost decorations, not disabilities.

In my book Through the Storms I describe this scene at the start of a chapter about bearing our scars with pride and not shame. So many of us do have scars from our encounters with pain, disappointment, trauma or battles of all kinds. I have many, both physical and emotional, from my own two decade long struggle with acute and chronic pancreatitis and the many long stays in hospital and appalling pain I endured. When I bared my torso for a medical examination recently the nurse exclaimed 'wow - that's not a scar; that's a shark attack!' The trauma of more than one 'near-death encounter' and long spells in intensive care has left its mark on my sub-conscious, and still affects me occasionally. But these veterans of war marching today by their thousands have reminded me again that our scars are not shameful - no, they speak of our overcoming, our victories.

If you are badly marked or impaired in some way either outwardly or within due to to trauma, hold your wounds up as badges of honour, not signs of disgrace. When Jesus overcame even death itself, his resurrected body still bore the marks of his traumatic death on the cross. They did not disappear in the glory of his victory precisely because they describe his triumph so clearly. Those wounds also become a sign to me of the way he enters into my own suffering so completely. They qualified Jesus as the perfect man as well as God, able to enter into our own battles and sufferings with complete understanding, and total victory.

So, scarred warrior, march on with pride, and when the devil reminds you of your past - just remind him of his future!