Within a month of my being at St. Mark UMC, this happened.
For those that don’t have time to read another post, a picture from that blog post in July:

Yea. It hurt. A lot. I don’t know if it would’ve hurt less than a wasp sting. It was a lose-lose situation.

8 months later, my forehead looks like this:

The scar hasn’t gone away.
It may not be noticeable to anyone else (hence the red circle) but every time I look in the mirror, I notice it. I see it, and I am reminded of my encounter with a beam. And, with the question, “Why isn’t the scar going away? Is it permanent?”
I wish I didn’t see it. But that’s the first place my eyes now go to when I look in the mirror: my forehead.

But, that’s the thing about scars.
Our scars, both physical and emotional, may not be noticeable to anyone else. But we see it. Every day. All the time.
But I feel that our scars are only as big as we make them to be.

The bigger we make the scars to be, the more it interferes with our lives.

A physical scar can make us feel unattractive and ugly.
An emotional scar can make us feel unworthy.
So, we don’t give ourselves the best chance to “succeed.”
Someone once said, “We accept the love that we think we deserve.”
And sometimes our “scars” seemingly dictates what kind of love we think we deserve.

The truth is — you’re beautiful. We are all beautiful, for we are made in the image of God. Wonderfully and fearfully made.

The scars in our lives do not dictate how broken we may be. And even if it did, God finds beauty in the broken.

God has found us worthy enough to call us God’s children.

We shouldn’t let our scars define us. Instead, we should let the love of God define us.

For “scars remind us where we have been. They don’t have to dictate where we’re going.” (Oddly enough, that may be from a Criminal Minds episode)