A tiny hole of a scar of my inside right thigh was from an ice pick I propped against my leg to keep me awake while studying in college one night. On the knee below is a scar with gravel in it, from a bike spill on a gravel driveway. No wonder that I admire handmade patchwork quilts. Physical scars gain us sympathy while they are fresh, but quickly fade in the eyes of those who see us frequently. More serious than physical scars are our mental scars.
Mental scars are something else.
Virtually invisible, they abide inside, testimony to hurts more enduring and aching than passing physical pains. Inevitably, as we age, we face up to the pains of loss-affectionate relatives dying, beloved classmates snatched to the grave too early in their promising lives, lives threatened and taken by cancer or carelessness or heart attacks or heartbreaks, sufferings caused by loss of work or addictions or disease. A quick run-through of a list of our friends and relatives over the years quickly shows how true is the scripture about rain falling on both the just and the unjust. Even the most sheltered and most golden of them have been scarred mentally. Not one has escaped.