The Wonder of a Scar

CORE-RELATE!

Every scar has a story to tell.

I think you would agree that the internet is now as ordinary as a loaf of bread. This blog, on the other hand, is just a tiny dot, a crumb in the pan of social media. Agree or not, however, I think how you got to this page is not an accident.

As I compose this post (hopefully not to compost it later on), I am on self-quarantine because of heavy sneezing, uncontrollable colds and, ugh, 'intermittent' cough. Thanks to YouTube, I got to watch the extraordinary message in church this morning. It brought me to a recollection of how I got this dot of a scar on my right pulse.

I am not a perfect human being. I am not a goody-two-shoed, naive little girl who knows nothing about violence, anger, sadness and pain. I am not popular. I am not wealthy. I am not a chart-topping artist, record-breaking athlete or bemedalled student. I am not a 'drop-dead' pretty lady who makes heads turn when she walks into a room full of people. I am just... ordinary.

Ordinary as I am, however, I grew up not mixing with the crowd. I didn't like doing things just because everybody's doing it. I've had this notion that numbers and rightness don't always go together. (I guess that explains my Math grades). Seriously, I think - even until today - that not because everybody does or agrees on the same thing doesn't make that thing right; I need to find out for myself and decide.

On this day and age of social media, "amalayer", cyber-bullying and pay-per-click, I am not going to say whether the internet (or social media) is wrong or right. It's just how the world operates these days. What I aim to write - or blog - about is how a scar has changed my life for the better.

As a tiny crumb, I've done many things which led me to being pecked on by birds or carried on by ants. I do not regret being a crumb - or a dot. It's how I was created to be.

During the time that Jesus walked the earth, there was a non-Jewish woman whose child 'had a demon.' (read about The Faith of the Canaanite Woman). Those days, people thought of certain 'requirements' to 'avail ' of Jesus' help. Jesus didn't set those requirements per se, people did. But the woman didn't care about those 'requirements.' She persisted, respectfully, on being helped by Jesus and an amazing thing happened: her child got healed!

Now what does that story have to do with the scar on my pulse and my being a crumb? Let's core-relate on the woman's bold reply to Jesus:

27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” (Matthew 15:27)

The woman humbly positioned herself to that of a dog who desired to 'eat' even just a crumb of mercy from Jesus. Jesus 'commended' her faith and healed her daughter right at that moment!

Jesus, a little later on, got crucified and we don't know where that woman was as Christ suffered. She probably was among those who secretly cried out for him as they witnessed his passion. Whenever I see this tiny little dot on my right pulse, I am reminded of how Jesus suffered for people, Jew and non-Jew alike.

I got this scar when I went for a routine laboratory test soon after a heart-wrenching breakup. The timing was off but I had to go through it. For the first time in my life, I remember looking straight at the syringe as the medical practitioner suctioned out blood from my pulse. I wasn't afraid and the pain I felt because of the injection was nothing compared to my emotional suffering at that time. Compared to Christ's suffering for me on the Cross though, that was not even close to a pinky finger kind of pain.

As a follower of Christ, I have come to believe and accept the fact that my life is not about me but about Him. I am not the Bread of Life - He is. Compared to Jesus, I am just a crumb. In many ways, many times, my loving duty is to point people to the extraordinary Bread that fully satisfies.

A dot or a crumb, who I am really won't make much of a difference. Yet if my life can at least be a sample of the goodness of Christ and make people want to 'have' the whole Bread for themselves, then I can say that by grace, I've made the mark I was supposed to make in the universe.

"35 Then Jesus declared, 'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.'" (John 6:35)

"8 Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him." (Psalm 34:8)