Round 3

I'm sure some of you were wondering about my post yesterday and how this had to do with anything that Above the Norm stands for, besides the obvious laugh or two. Even God enjoys a good laugh. And that's something I realized.

As I sat in the back, holding a gauze pad soaked in some dosage of chemicals to my head, I couldn't help but laugh. Here's why.

I love scars. I think they're cool. I have several noticeable ones.
The first one, chronologically, came when I was eight or nine years old and fell off a cliff I was climbing in a creek. Given, I was only about twelve feet off the ground, but I feel directly on my knee, splitting the skin in two places on a jagged rock.

The second one is actually less visible. When I was eleven, a frisbee hit me in the mouth and cracked a front tooth in half. The other half was replaced with plastic, and so the scar is more like an odd shading in the lower left half of my front tooth.

The third one is my right index finger which was sliced 9 centimeters deep by a meat slicer, and, due to a poor stitching job, remains quite disfigured.

And now, the fourth, being my head wound.

In between them lie many burn scars from flat-top grills, ovens, and frying oil, several cut scars from kitchen knives, and four small points in my left arm that are, ironically, match the position of four fork prongs...which, again ironically, was the weapon that inflicted them. (One of my best friends and one of the best drummers I know is somewhere laughing about a simple accident that has since become legendary.)

But what is my point?

We all have our scars. Some physical, some mental, some emotional. Some even spiritual. Most of us have some in all of these areas.

But that's only all the more reason to help each other heal from these scars, some of them still fresh enough to be called wounds. I know that whenever I've had wounds, my family and friends have been there to support me. And I've seen my family and friends support many others. I've seen my father support many of his friends who come into his restaurant, and they in turn support us. My father once told me that a man's character can never be replaced by money, which is why no man is ever forced into poverty, and that a man's character is always worth more than money, which is what makes a man rich. (Or, at least, something along those lines.)

I've seen some of the richest men in the world, and I have experienced their support, kindness, and ability to super-glue a man's head together. And I know my father is one of the richest men I've ever known because of this.

I laughed in that back room because I realized that while I was hurt, I was no longer hurting. Not really.

Christ had his scars. Many of them in his head, pierced not by window panes, but thorns. I have one piercing in my head; he had dozens. I have a cut in one finger; he had two holes in both hands. I think we often underestimate just how much the Son of God was scarred by our sins. But also underestimate His power to bestow upon all mankind the grace that is needed to support one another in both healing wounds of the past and protecting from wounds in the future.

May God bless and heal all of our scars, and may He grant us the grace to aid one another.