God may break us in order to remake us

Scar. No one was born with it. If anything like it, it would be called birthmark, and birthmark is far more "holy" than a scar. A birthmark is something that came with us when we were born, attached to who we are. The word scar sounds like something worth to hide, I wouldn't want anyone else to see. It represents a damage, a broken tisue, a failure.

The scarriest scar I had is still on the back of my palm right on the border of my fingers when my right hand tried to stop the velocity that hit my body from a scooter that was hit by a bycicle. The accident happened late at night about nine years ago when I tried to get some coffee (that event didn't stop me from drinking coffee). My hand was in a bandage ala a boxer for about a month, just in time when I had to go to a trip for a research project in Japan. Great. The wound was gone, but the scar are there, four of them, everytime I looked at it I remember how much I was blessed because nothing else in my body was hurt from that accident. Even my glasses were intact! It was a miracle, and I certainly greatful I only had the scar.

This August, life had scratched more scars than I'd ever had in my collected years. What else if it's not because of poison ivy. The three-leaves "plants" is harmful to our skin and body, even if it's been dead for three years. You couldn't see it when you had fun, throwing frisbee, eating pizza, watching the sunset, and listening to a live music.

There's a lesson to this, though. When scrambling through the woods, a pair of jeans might be a better choice.

Our body has an amazing system of protection. When attached by foreign agent, in this case poison ivy, the body had a strategy to fight back. Scars are areas of fibrous tissue that replace normal skin after destruction of some of the dermis. It is a result of the biologic process of wound repair in the skin and other tissues of the body. Scar looks hideous, but it is a natural process of healing. Our scars shows that we, more and less, alive.

We saw the opportunity, took the chance, failed, broken hearted, scarred. If I didn't take the chance to scramble through the forest on that beautiful summer day, feeling pretty while wearing my pretty dress (stop laughing, please), I would not have the memory of a beautiful summer day spent with laughter and joy. I wouldn't know there was this hidden field of black-eyed-susan in the back pathway of Burnet Woods, more like a wild prairie field. I wouldn't know how to play frisbee!

It's life, and life has its scars.