a prayer for my tongue: the sequel

Yesterday before church started a good friend walked up to me and asked to see my left hand.  Now, I had some gold bangles on my wrist, and my wedding band on my ring finger, but nothing super special… no sparkly, deco nails or henna tattoo.  I wondered what he was up to.  Hesitatedly, I gave my hand over.

He looked carefully; he looked puzzled.  I asked, “What is it?”

He answered, “I read your blog.  I was looking to see if you had a scar.”

If you read my previous post, you understand.  I suffered third degree burns on three fingers of my left hand in the third grade.  I know absolutely nothing about the medical treatment of burns.  All I know is, they took all my skin off, I wore a white bandage the whole entire rest of the school year, and, eventually, my own skin grew back.  And today – thirty years later – you could never ever tell by the sight of my left hand that it had ever experienced the slightest injury.  No scar.  At all.

It would have made a good story to tell you that I had a scar on my hand… a constant reminder of the pain I went through… a remnant of the hurt that would forever be a part of me.  I mean, that’s the way life works, isn’t it?  We get hurt.  In time, we heal.  But we carry with us the scars.

I have never once in thirty years thought about how remarkable and strange it is that I have no scars from my Bonanza incident.  So yesterday, as I walked into worship from that conversation, I considered it.   I thought about the connection between my painful burn injury thirty years ago and my tongue’s power to burn my kids’ lives down today.  And as I began to worship Him with song, it hit me:  In God’s economy, scars are NOT required.

In God’s economy, when He heals a heart, a life, He has the power to erase every sign of it ever happening. 

“I will forgive their wickedness, and will remember their sins no more” 

(Jeremiah 31: 34; Hebrews 8:12).

Does He sometimes leave scars?  Absolutely.  Do we sometimes have to face consequences of forgiven sins?  Absolutely.  But get this: ONLY when He will get more glory (and we will get more good) from having a scar, than from not.  From facing the consequences, than from not.

So my “Prayer for My Tongue: The Sequel” is this:  Lord, I messed up today.  I lost my temper.  I said things I shouldn’t have said.  I didn’t exhibit patience, or grace.  I judged.  I nagged.  I tore down, instead of building up.  I’ve asked for their forgiveness.  Would you help them forget?

You see, a couple years ago, an amazing older mom who has raised two godly women admitted to me that she wasn’t perfect.  That when they were little, she would sometimes lose her temper and later pray that they would forget.  [Genius!  Why didn’t I think of that?!]  If you ask her two grown daughters today about their childhood, they will tell you that their momma never raised her voice. 

If we’ve not been given the grace to forget what has happened to us… by all means let’s use it for His glory.  Let’s make sure the people around us know better than to make the same mistakes we’ve made.  Let’s let the gruesome lingering consequences cause us to throw up in our mouth every time we consider going back to that sin again.  For His glory.  For our good.  That’s what scars and consequences are for. 

But know this:  when God heals, He doesn’t graft in something artificial. He doesn’t just make us better.  He makes us new. 

“Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

Acts 10:15

This imperfect momma is glad to worship a God who forgives and forgets.  Who heals and makes new.   Whose patience is evidenced by the sunrise every morning, and the very breath that just passed through my lungs.  And that one, too.  Who has made my heart, my life, brand new.  And who is doing the same with the three daughters of His under my current care.