Recently I had blood drawn for a physical. My veins were
especially uncooperative that day, and for a while I sported a pair of bruises on my
forearms from the experience. They weren’t painful, but they were noticeable
(sadly, I wasn’t able to think up a more dashing story to go with them).
This got me thinking about bruises in general, and scars, too.
We can’t get far without collecting our share of bruises and
scars. Life, it seems, has a way of marking us, reminding us of both our
fragility and our resilience. We’re so fragile that a bump can break blood
vessels under the skin and cause blood to pool in the tissues, and we can
easily be cut or scraped, sometimes resulting in a scar.
But we’re also resilient. Bruises fade and heal, and scars,
in fact, are proof of healing, at least according to Wikipedia: “Any injury
does not become a scar until the wound has completely healed.”
Bruises and scars are badges of honor. We don’t get banged
up by staying safe at home in our comfort zones. If we’ve gotten a bruise or
scar, we were probably out doing something, learning something, experiencing everyday adventures.
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| I've had a few bruises from Tank |
Sometimes bruises and scars don’t show up in our outer
appearance. Sometimes the injury occurs internally, but leaves a mark nevertheless.
Those emotional wounds can be more painful than physical ones, but they
eventually heal, too, little by little becoming less painful. If we can
remember that healing is a process and an inevitable one at that, we’ll be able
to handle the initial pain better. We’ve all heard Ernest Hemingway’s words
from A Farewell to Arms: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many
are strong at the broken places.”
