Scars are Beauty - My Story

Scars are beauty, huh? Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it. But it's one of my life sayings. We've all been through life, and we all know what it's like to hurt. Here's my story.

     Let's go back in time. Back to when my father was just a little boy, about eight or nine years old. He had a tumor behind his eye. That's scary on its own. Because of the tumor, he needed a blood transfusion. During the late 70s, though, blood was not tested, or at least not as it should have been.
     He went on to live a healthy childhood with his family in Central America. I know, cool. He came back to America for college, fell in love with my mom, and got married. Five years later, they were expecting their first little baby. But he got sick. Test after test after test could not tell the doctors what was causing him to be like this. Then, 14 weeks into the pregnancy, he was diagnosed as HIV positive. HIV affects the T-Cells of a human, it weakens the immune system. A person who does not have HIV has a T-Cell count around 1400-1500; his T-Cell count was 7. When the T-Cell count falls below 200, the HIV patient has full-blown AIDS. My father was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, and my mother was expecting me in 26 weeks.
     My mother has never tested positive for HIV, and neither have I nor my sister. That in itself is a miracle of God. The fact that my dad can wake up every morning and go to work is a miracle. He plays fast pitch softball in the fall and is active in serving and church.
     But all of this has changed me into the person I am today. Were it not for my dad's diagnosis, I would not cringe every time I hear AIDS used as the punch line for a joke. I wouldn't be trying to find ways to raise awareness for the disease in my school. My parents might not be helping teens and families also dealing with this disease.

     This past February, my mom, sister, and I were in a car wreck. We were turning left at the top of a hill, couldn't see, and were hit pretty much full on. I was in the passenger seat; the crash hit between the front tire and side mirror on the passenger side. The car was completely totaled.
     My sister and I came out with only concussions and a seatbelt burn on her neck. My mom came out with a swollen and bruised up knee. I had a bump on my head that could fit in the palm of my hand. But it could have been so much worse.
     That wreck caused me to see things about God that I hadn't really taken notice of before. Yeah, I knew them, but they were some of those attributes that you've heard so many times you just kind of forget about them. He will never leave me. He is my protector. He has something amazing for me down the road. I remember my mom looking at me and telling me that He wouldn't have kept me here if there wasn't something in my future that He was planning to use me for. That amazes me.

     Scars are beauty. I first realized this when I looked in the mirror after the wreck and said, "I don't want to put any scar-removing anything on the airbag burn on my face. They show what I've been through, and I want to always have that reminder." Our scars are the reminders of our battles. They show us where we've been and how we fought through. For a long time, I had no scars to see in the mirror. But I had scars that I could still see, even though no one else could.
     We all have internal scars. What makes those beautiful is when God comes in, stitches them back up, and makes us whole again. He turns us into something beautiful. He takes what we've been through and uses it for His glory.

So that's where my idea of scars are beauty comes from. Whatever it is that you've been through our you're going through, it makes you beautiful. It makes you who you are.