Scars

We had a rough 12 hours around here Friday night leading into Saturday morning.

I'm trying to teach her not to bite. Biting is bad.

And things were progressing just fine...

Until, in a moment of play, she jumped up and bit my eye.

Oh yeah. It hurt.

Saturday morning while cleaning, I accidentally shut her foot in the bathroom door.

Oh yeah. It hurt.

She limped around all day, I iced my bruised eye. It was a red letter day in the O'Donnell household. But fortunately, nothing that will scar us for life.

This weekend in general has had me thinking a lot about scars- the ones we see, and the ones we don't.

On a large scale- there's the scar, the deep tissue scar of losing a loved one that fateful day ten years ago today, September 11th, 2001.  The scar that no one can see- but is always there, underneath the surface. The one that no matter how many anniversaries pass, will always hurt.

There's the scar that, in the grand scheme of life, doesn't amount to much. Except when you see them, huddled over lunch on a patio on a glorious fall day. That scar resurfaces for a time, making you feel vulnerable and sad and insignificant- just a momentary hurt-  before fading back into the shadows again.

And then there's a black eye; an obvious scar that will fade away completely. In a week's time, no one will ever know it existed.

We all have scars- obvious or underneath the surface- that define who we are at a moment in time. And if we're lucky, it defines where we're going, too. Scars remind us that life carries on long after the hurt. They give us hope moving into the future, and faith that God has a plan far greater than we can imagine.

Today, I pray those left scarred by the events of September 11th, 2001, will find peace on this tenth anniversary- and with every year, hope for what the future holds, too.