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Commentary

By Liz Quirin

Skinned Knees and Other Scars

Let’s do a body scan and look at the scars we have accumulated in our lives to this point. We don’t think about them often, especially if they’re really old scars and if they have faded over the years. When those scars were active wounds, not yet healed, they commanded our attention in a way that blocked other thoughts and activities from our minds. Unless they are severely debilitating — and for some people they truly are — they are relegated into the past, compartmentalized in another part of our brains.

Sometimes the circumstances of those scars produced unpredictable or perhaps unplanned, consequences. For instance, when I was in eighth grade, I was running to catch a bus, tripped and fell. I still have the scar on my knee, and once in awhile when I see it, I remember the circumstances and the unfortunate consequences of the aftermath of the situation. I was “grounded” and supposed to be at home after school but went to a friend’s house to play softball since my mother wouldn’t be home until 4:30. Naturally, I misjudged the time, ran and missed the bus, and once again, was late in getting home. And, alas, in more trouble than I had been at the beginning of the day. If I had just done what was requested and expected, I would not have incurred more restrictions on my after-school activities.

So many changes have taken place in life and the world since then, and most children don’t ride buses home from friends’ homes: too dangerous, too little access to public transportation, to name just two possible reasons.
However, the scar reminds me not only of a simpler past but of choices I made that pointed to broader lessons that may have been lost on me at the time. I don’t want to go back so I can “do the right thing” and get home on time. I probably wouldn’t be able to manage that even now.

However, it reminds me that even now, so many years later, I still make choices, take chances and reap the benefits or pay the costs of those choices. The phrase “I did it without thinking” often carries more negative consequences than positive ones. If nothing else, remembering that scar forces me to think about what I’m doing, and hopefully why I’m doing it so that I reap more benefits and pay fewer costs.

We can’t change the past, and that’s probably a good thing because nothing guarantees we would do a better job or be more responsible if we could. We can, however, learn from the past, and often that’s better than a “do over.” It’s the life lessons we learn along the way that can prevent us, or at least dissuade us, from repeating the same mistakes over and over. Now, what do your scars tell you? Remember, we’ve already been saved but we may not be rescued. And rescue becomes easier when we learn the important life lessons that are generally staring us in the face.