Five ways to come to terms with your scars.

Pain is a bitter pill to swallow. Who wants to feel the sting of failure or the overwhelming hurt of brokenness in our relationships?

And when pain inevitably comes, our response is fairly predictable—we complain, run away and get depressed. Sometimes we turn our pain outward to others and become abusive. Often, we turn inward and beat ourselves up, repeating lies that eventually become our truth and define our fragmented reality.

Learning to embrace our pain is a process that I describe as the “pain continuum.” The pain continuum helps us understand how we usually cope with our pain and gives us insight that can lead to maturity and growth.

Stage 1: Covering

The initial stage of the continuum occurs when we first experience pain. Pain is the natural repercussion of dealing with our brokenness. Our immediate response to this type of pain is to deny it. Even if we are forced to acknowledge what is happening, we seek a way of avoiding the pain. Some people never get past this stage. They live in an unhealthy state of denial. The pain only worsens. Certainly, it can be numbed at times, but itʼs never truly better. A person living in denial falls prey to a constant dullness of heart, leading a disengaged life, and avoiding choices and commitments that might lead to additional episodes of brokenness. Eventually life becomes a work of projecting a false self. This just adds more stress.

When we act in a way that is different from what we know is honest, we lack power in our lives. We can fool people, but our voices lack resonance. Over time, this leads us to hide who we are and cover up our weaknesses. Just like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we are no longer comfortable being transparent in the light of Godʼs truth, and we respond to our pain by hiding and covering. A dissonance rises between what we say and who we really know we are.

Stage 2: Confession

Sometimes, though, people come to a place of recognizing that something is wrong with their lives. They are able to admit that not all is right. Biblically, the act of confession is when we come to agree with God about our issues: our sins and all the ways in which weʼve missed the mark. When we agree with God, we take the first step toward exiting the rut of denial. Since our failure is constant, confession becomes part of the normal rhythm of those who follow Jesus.

The temptation for most of us is to stop growing at the moment of confession. We confess our failure or the pains others have caused us. We ask God to take the pain away, hoping for instant transformation and healing. But as we struggle with the wounds others have inflicted or our own addictions, whether to alcohol or drugs, or to materialism, money and worldly success, we must recount that we are weak and that change is rarely instantaneous.

Stage 3: Embrace

The stage of embrace is what enables a person to take responsibility for his or her sin and to see failure and healing as an integral part of the growth process. Along with our positive attributes and gifts, we also have scars that define who we are. In this stage, an individual accepts shortcomings and the fact that he or she desperately needs grace.

To be clear: the movement toward embrace is not a tacit “oh well,” a casual acceptance of our sins. Embracing our broken humanity is not an attempt to solve our sin problem or forever end the pain. Instead, itʼs about living in the tension of our ongoing brokenness and at the same time the good news of our position as children of God.

In fact, as we mature in our faith, we grow more sensitive to our weaknesses, to the things that we once ignored or paid little attention to. As we draw closer to the light, our scars are more noticeable. Perhaps this is what the apostle Paul was thinking when he described himself as the “worst of sinners” in his letter to Timothy. The more Paul became aware of Godʼs goodness, the more he became aware of his own failures. Paul understood and managed the tension between his identity as a child of God—saved by grace—and his ongoing struggle with sin.

Stage 4: Guide

As we learn to recognize our scars as gifts, they eventually become guides for our lives. Too often, we are motivated by our strengths. We run toward the things we are good at. We avoid the things we arenʼt good at. We attempt to ignore our more noticeable character defects. Yet as we begin to appreciate Godʼs shaping hand in our lives, we become grateful for His molding our character through pain. In the process, we discover our true calling, the way of the cross. Our pain and weakness become the pillars that God uses as a platform, a place where we can stand and speak into the lives of others.

Nehemiah, the heroic rebuilder of the walls of Jerusalem, found his purpose through devastation. His vision grew out of his deep sorrow over the destruction of his city. God used his pain to redirect his life. Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem, a place of destruction and failure, and became the leader of the rebuilding effort. As he addressed his own pain, God illuminated his destiny.

Stage 5: Gift

The next stage of maturation occurs when our perspective on pain changes. In this stage, we allow the Holy Spirit to redeem our pain for the sake of the greater good. Our pain keeps us humble and dependent on the Lord.

I have also experienced the perfecting power of pain. God has shaped me through some of my most obvious abnormalities and struggles: the challenge of my multiracial roots, being a minority, witnessing my parentsʼ divorce, my momʼs sudden death, failures in the workplace, and broken relationships with my wife, my children, my church, and my friends. These experiences have taught me that God uses all of our story—the pain and struggle—to advance His Kingdom.

Another aspect of this maturation is that when we connect with others in community, we discover that it is our particular pain, not our strengths, that enables others to relate to us most intimately. Pain, in this sense, becomes Godʼs gift to us. We all want to make a difference in the world. We all want to connect with others in some way. Pain is the common ground God gives us to meet people, regardless of their cultural background or personal history. People can understand the pain of disappointment, of loss, of failure.

St. Augustine writes, “In my deepest wound, I see your glory, and it dazzles me.”

Our pain becomes the scars for people to see the healing power of our great God. Not only does He heal; He transforms what could have destroyed us.

Taken from Xealots by Dave Gibbons. Copyright 2011 by Dave Gibbons. Used by permission of Zondervan. WWW.ZONDERVAN.COM.

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