Life without scars
Many people believe that the scars they've received in life will be with them forever. People can often tell about how they received a physical or an emotional scar, and although the memories may cause them pain, they will continue to tell what happened.
Individuals who suffer abuse as children, however, often hide the story of their abuse from others. Hiding and living with their pain and memories everyday is the norm.
On a local talk show a man in his 30s said he found it very painful to talk about how he'd been sexually abused as a child. He spent a great deal of his interview talking about how he was scarred for life.
A woman I met at a meeting spoke about how she had been abused as a child. She told about how one particular day when she was young, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. While looking, the thought came to her that her father was abusing the image of her, not the real her. That thought helped her.
This initial awakening led her to eventually discover that the scars of abuse were not permanent, and she was freed from hiding her pain in drugs. She was also freed from the physical and emotional pain of the abuse. She is today a happy and fulfilled person.
It seems that many people believe that their bodies are the source of their goodness, happiness, innocence, and purity, and when something happens to their body, the damage must be permanent. There is also a feeling of powerlessness when we are hurt or harmed by others. This causes some people to simply give up on life.
Yet this message from the Scriptures has reassured me many times: "God is able..." One verse that begins this way is: "God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work" (II Cor. 9:8).
The phrase "God is able" is also implied in many other places in the Bible. This statement of truth can be a place for healing to start. God is able to restore, able to give us peace, and is able to remove the thought that causes pain.
God is able to love us. And there is nothing that can happen to our bodies or our mental health that can take away God's love for each one of us. And this is something that we can lean upon.
The book by Mary Baker Eddy that explains Christian Science states: "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings" ("Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," pg. vii.) One of the definitions for "lean" is to rest one's weight upon or against something. The assurance that we are able to lean on the divine Spirit and that Spirit is here to be leaned upon is comforting.
There is a story about how King David, along with his family and followers, had to leave home because David's third and favorite son had raised an army against his father. The story relates how David was not sure of where they could go and whom they could trust. It tells of the verbal abuse they received on that journey. One thing David did know was that God was able to supply rightness in all situations. David had proved this truth to himself probably many times: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want" (Ps. 23:1).
It often seems that it's at the lowest point in our lives that we're willing to let go of all things and try God. And that's OK, because God, Love, is there for us always.
This statement from Science and Health supports our desire to lean on God: "When we reach our limits of mental endurance, we conclude that intellectual labor has been carried sufficiently far; but when we realize that immortal Mind is ever active, and that spiritual energies can neither wear out nor can so-called material law trespass upon God-given powers and resources, we are able to rest in Truth, refreshed by the assurances of immortality, opposed to mortality" (pg. 387) We can be freed from mental demons.
You and I are entitled to a good life. Find it. Expect it. You can start here: "God is able."
With God all things are possible.
Mark 10:27
