The One and Only

When I look back on my first two years of widowhood, interestingly enough, I don't mourn. I crane my head over my shoulder turn back around, give my brain a good shake and say "whoa, what a ride!". It makes for an interesting story (okay, shameless plug for my upcoming book) I can assure you. It has all the makings of a great movie. A hero, a villian, then you don't know who is the villian and who is the hero but you want to find out and it comes with a happy ending. What could be better? Great trial in life leaves you with profound insight. You gain nuggets of truth no one else can have except those that have been in your shoes and also, if they are blessed, learned the same things. I have led a life that no one would choose. Were I to list all of the amazing suffering I've endured you'd wonder why I was still sitting here, let alone able to tell you about it with a smile on my face. I walked through the fire and yet, not burned. Sure, I've got scars. No one ever promised me I'd be unscathed. These emotional scars are visible, praise God. To some, they add to my beauty. They see the lines, the bumps. They run their fingers over them and stare into my face in amazement and call them blessed. The ones that do that are the ones who rejoice in my suffering because they know it also brought healing. While their trial might be different than mine, they want the same transformation. They know that the pain, in the end, brings great joy. I am living proof of it and so they can hold on, for just one more day if they can have what they see in me. To them I say, study every blemish. Ask me about all of them. I will tell you of the great peace they have brought to me. Others see my scars and call them ugly. They see what I've become and call it a curse. To them I am something to ridicule, maimed beyond recognition from what I used to be. They mourn for the old person I once was. They see me now, they see my beauty and they are jealous for it so they resent me. They have their own wounds from life but they are not the same. They have not experienced the healing from living water like I have. Theirs are still open and painful. When they see my scars, though they shine in the light from closure and regrowth, they want to rip them open. To me I am a thing to be avoided as they are confused by the new creation I've become. "Don't tell anyone you've been cured!" they say. I tell them how I got better and they furrow their brows in irritance. Some have left my side. Others flee in horror, afraid they will look like me if they get too close. Those are the ones I sorrow for the most. They don't know how close restoration they really were, but they refuse it. For me, what once was is now irrevocably gone. What is left is only a reminder. I look at myself, examine my scars and wear them as badges of honor. They are a gift. I have now by my wounds been given a great commission. To go in search of the suffering and try to offer relief. If not for the visible reminders of battles past, no one would ever know there was any hope for their future or mine.