We All Have Scars

I wanted to write about this yesterday, but with it being Thanksgiving, it would not have been a subject that is, in my mind, appropriate. I realize that one of the topics that I have dealt with on this blog has been fate. Another topic has been forgiveness and those who have the power to do it. Clearly, I have my views on the subject matter and I do not expect everyone to agree with me. One person who does not agree with me on subject of forgiveness has been my father.

We can have long discussions on this topic and will end up agreeing to disagree. As everyone knows I believe you need to forgive people (and yourself) in order to move on with anything in your life. To me, it is about the ability to let go of the past. A good friend of mine quoted me a poem, so will still this quote from her: Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. I am one to truly believe that there are things that you need to just let go of.

While having this debate with my dad, he brought up something interesting that I had not really thought about (he tends to do that). When bad things happen to people weather it is physically or emotionally, these "things" tend to leave it's mark. We all have scars on our bodies and on our hearts. The thing about physical scars is that those heal after time, but yet you can still see them and will always be reminded of how you got them. Emotional scars tend to work the same way. While you may not see them, they will always be there and will never be forgetton...but they do heal.

My dad is not one to believe that time heals old wounds and I wonder if he thinks people can change (I will have to ask him). He told me that he has been burned more times than he cares to remember and will never put himself in a situation where we will be burned again. I will say that my father is a good guy who has constantly given people the benefit of the doubt. However, too many people have taken advantage of that and he has become less trusting of people in general. Of course, it is only worse when family is a part of that equation. So, forgiveness is pointless in many cases to him. If you had the nerve to burn him once (and is some cases twice), he will never allow you to do that again. He has been scarred and will never forget that.

I look at things a little differently. I have a few scars on my body. I know how I got all of them, most of which I got because I was being careless. While I remember them, they do not effect me; I just know that I was young and stupid. My physical scars do not prevent me for taking risks however, I am not trying to get anymore scars so I know to be careful with any activity. One thing that I can say about all my scars was that I allowed them to heal. I rarely picked at them because it would only make things worse when it comes to the healing process.

With that being said, my emotional scars are a lot to bear. I have scars from childhood through high school. Those scares have effected me and yet, has given me the strength to be what I am now. I also have scars for the careless things I have done to myself and other people. What I have found is the forgiveness has helped me heal those wounds. Forgiving someone does not mean you are giving them a pass to scar you again, it just stops us from picking at old wounds.

Let me inject a little fate here. Everything and everyone has a purpose in our lives. Getting scarred by others is a part of life. We learn from them. Sometimes the people who scar us are the most are the ones we love the most. Those scars make us the people we are and since we never know what the future holds, we never know if a scar we received in the past was meant to happen in order for us to be strong in the future. I think we all need to be hurt so that we know how to love. I am referring to the story of the perfect heart.

Ever time I read that story I think about how we all have to fail before we can succeed. None of us are prefect and we really should not expect perfection from anyone else. The number one answer has always been to cut off those people who hurt us but, does that really solve the problem or does the put a bad aid on the wound? There are people and situations that we need to face and things that need to resolved because in reality, emotional scars are very hard to heal without a resolution of some kind.

We all have those people that we will never speak to again. I have a couple of people who are on that list. It is hard to forgive people. I know that. But, holding on to things from the past makes it difficult to move on. We are not in control of the future. So once again, let go of the wheel...