And what to do about SCARS?

On the long drive home from Tijuana to Utah earlier this month, I stopped at a McD’s because they have the cleanest bathrooms. And, well, because I’d drunk the 32 oz green juice I swerved off the freeway to get, at the Henderson Whole Foods Market.

Inside the stall, a pink Post-It Note was taped to the door. It said,

“You are beautiful and unique, just the way you are!”

Who knew bathroom graffiti could make me cry? I was so moved that someone has the sweet mission of writing notes with Sharpies to help women love themselves better and posting them everywhere. And on top of it all, show the business owner the respect of not writing on the walls. Weird and cute and classy, all at the same time.

Nikki and I were in a San Diego hotel and had the sweetest conversation. Nikki is our product developer and my cancer research assistant. But she’s just been trained to run the Green Smoothie show when Kristin can’t come with me. (Kristin is burning out on my never-ending speaking tour–a lot of work for her!) Nikki worked alongside Kristin in St. George and Vegas, and then ran the show herself in Riverside and San Diego.

I told Nik about Cheryl and the wrinkles, which I blogged about yesterday. About how I decided at some point to shift some energy from self-loathing, to choosing to accept and love my body, my wrinkles, my flaws. How I figured out somewhere along the line that’s a better use of my energy.

Nikki said,

“I’ve been thinking about scars lately.”

She showed me a prominent white scar on her arm and told me the story. Nikki was three years old, held in her mother’s arms. Her mother was talking to a friend, who also held her two-year old in her arms. For no discernible reason, the boy bent his head over and….bit into Nikki’s irresistibly luscious arm.

Nikki said, “If God perfects my body someday, I want Him to leave this scar. Some scars I don’t love as much, but this one I do.”

Nikki loves to scold the grown-up boy, Justin Holbrook, with proof of his toddler misdeed, when he comes to their mutual hometown of Burley, Idaho. And I imagine, as I said to her,

“Yeah, it’s a memory you have of your mama, too, right?”

Nikki’s mother died in a car accident when Nikki was only 7 years old.

I sit down on the hotel bed and show Nikki……The Worm. It’s a keloid scar on the back of my ankle. You know, those big, raised, white ones?

Obtaining the scar wasn’t particularly interesting. At my old house, I installed a screen door on my front porch so the kids could bang in and out. So I didn’t have to be Vigilante Mom, yelling about leaving the door open with the air conditioning on.

(My dad did that as I was growing up. He’d bellow, “I’M PAYING TO AIR CONDITION THE GREAT OUTDOORS!”)

One day, I’m barefoot, and the corner of that screen door caught me just wrong and slit two inches up the back of my heel. When you walk, your foot constantly flexes, so the thing didn’t heal. It would scab over, and then the simple act of walking would break the scab open. Many times.

Consequently, when it finally healed, it was a fat scar with an uncanny resemblance to an earthworm.

So at church, or anywhere that we might be bored, when my kids were little, I’d say, “Oh no, LOOK! The worm is grooooowing!” I’d start with the scar as small as possible by Barbie-pointing my toes. Then I slowly flexed my foot so that the scar grew longer and longer and LONGER AND LONGER!!! “AAAAAH! BE VERY SCARED, THE WORM IS TAKING OVER THE WORLD!” I’d fake a panicked look, as if the worm was growing without me having any control over my foot.

It used to make my kids laugh when they were little. Now they roll their eyes at stuff like this, of course, because it really is stupid. But they thought it was great fun, once upon a time. Happy memories of ridiculously simple entertainment. Simpler times.

Nikki said, “Even Jesus, whose perfect life entitled him to a perfect, restored body, chose to keep his magnificent scars.” They are emblems of his experience, his grace.

Our scars show who we are, tell our own magnificent, quirky, unique story.

What, then, is “perfection?”

Maybe the lady with the Sharpie and the Post-It Notes has it right.

“You are beautiful and unique, just the way you are!”

Posted in: Mind/Body Connection