Bearing the marks of survival scars that speak of your endurance

“Scars are not signs of weakness, they are signs of survival and endurance.” ― Rodney A. Winters

We are not weakened by that which made us weak in the past.  Even those things that crushed us for a time were not the cause of our demise.

We survived.
We endured.
We were not overcome.
We overcame.

The traumas we wore on our bodies, when our psyches were ravaged, when it was as if soul was divided from spirit and we had collapsed under the weight of the situations that threatened to destroy us; these became the very battle scars we wear today.  We wear them in defiance of evil.  We wear them in defence of the good.  We wear them not with petty pride but with dutiful dignity.

We survived.
We endured.
We were not overcome.
We overcame.

We would not have chosen this way, but we responded in the only way we knew how.  We don’t teach these ways to our children because we want to, but because we have been equipped, it is our job to pass these learnings onto the next generation.

We didn’t want this for ourselves and we do not want it for our loved ones, but what choice do we have when trauma sets itself against our lives?

We survived.
We endured.
We were not overcome.
We overcame.

There comes a time in all our lives when our outward appearance is merely a testimony of what we’ve been through. We are no longer fussed if we don’t look pretty or handsome anymore, because we have much more substance than that now.

We look at our scars, and we see them as badges of honour in compensation for what we’ve been through.  No veteran looks at the adornments on their chest as prizes free of the cost of suffering.  

We too have come to accept that whilst we would not have chosen some of the things that have happened, we are glad to reflect on the choices we’ve made in how we responded to them.

As we look at our scars in the context of what they remind us of, we receive an irrefutably real yet strange comfort from God.  It’s a “well done, good and faithful servant” kind of reward, and it’s an inside job that we get to enjoy every moment we take to reflect on such a truth.

Our scars do not diminish us; on the contrary they speak of bravery done.  And this cannot be taken away.

Nothing and nobody can take this away from us. History has been written. And whilst there would’ve been times we comprehensively felt overcome, we were not overcome indefinitely.

We survived.
We endured.
We were not overcome.
We overcame.

Photo by Yukie Emiko on Unsplash