Sharon Jaynes - Your Scars Are Beautiful to God: Finding Peace and Purpose in the Hurts of Your Past

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Verses marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Verses marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Verses marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Verses marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Verses marked TNIV are taken from the Holy Bible, Todays New International Version (TNIV) Copyright 2001 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved worldwide.

Cover by Garborg Design Works, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Cover photo Photodisc Photography / Veer

Some names have been changed to protect peoples privacy.

YOUR SCARS ARE BEAUTIFUL TO GOD

Copyright 2006 by Sharon Jaynes

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jaynes, Sharon.

Your scars are beautiful to God / Sharon Jaynes.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7369-1610-3 (pbk.)

ISBN-10: 0-7369-1610-5 (pbk.)

Product # 6916105

1. Christian womenReligious life. 2. SufferingReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BV4527.J397 2006

248.8'6dc22 2006001340

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America.

06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 / VP-MS / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to my stepdad,
Pete Wright
He was a portrait of unconditional love
and was adored by all who had the
privilege of knowing him.

This book would not be possible without courageous men and women who are not ashamed of their scars, but are willing to use their own personal pain to minister to others. A special thanks to Bob and Audrey Meisner, Patricia Dilling, Marita Yerton, Karl Kakadelis, Patricia Campbell, Micca Campbell, Wendy Blight, Carol Sittema, Tom and Lyndalyn Kakadelis, Katie Signaigo, Melissa Taylor, Blake Taylor, Dylan Taylor, Tricia Groyer, Rod Huckaby, Huck Huckaby, Carol and Gene Kent, Kathy Klein, Susie Pietrowski, Ginger Plowman, Many Nash, and my son, Steven Jaynes. Seeing how each of you has found peace and purpose in the pain of your past has encouraged me to share the hope and healing of Jesus Christ with the world.

Once again, I am thankful for the incredible staff and leadership at Harvest House Publishers for believing in this project. You are truly changing the world for Christ and ushering in a bountiful harvest.

I am forever grateful for my wonderful husband, Steve, for his prayers, love, and support during the months of writing this book and the years of learning its lessons.

Most of all, I am eternally thankful for my heavenly Father for healing my deepest wounds and transforming them into beautiful scars.

Like the spine of a good book, scars, by their very nature, imply theres a story to tell. They represent a wrinkle in time in which a persons life is changed forever, and they serve as permanent reminders of an incident that, in one way or another, has made a lasting impression on ones life. Travis pulls up his pant leg to reveal where two bullets pierced his flesh during the Korean War. Melanie wears a gold chain just below an incision that was made across her delicate neck to save her life from thyroid cancer. Peeking just below the hem of Gayles capri pants lies a reminder of knee surgery where a tumor was removed. Showing through Beths makeup is the shadow of a scar left by an abusive boyfriends tirade. Just beneath Rachels shirt sleeve hides a daily reminder of her suicide attempt ten years earlier. Like a trophy, four-year-old Bobby points out his badge of courage on his once-scabbed knee.

Each scar represents a moment in time or a passage of time when something happened to us or through us that we will never forget.

I have several scars on my body, and each has a story to tell. One is smack-dab in the middle of my forehead. I earned it in the third grade.

In my early years, I was a rough and rowdy tomboy who climbed trees, skipped rocks, and made skid marks on the asphalt with my banana seat bike tires. My backyard was the envy of every kid in the neighborhood. It came equipped with a drainage ditch across the back border that ran for six city blocks, tunneled under intersections, and culminated in a large ditch we dubbed the canyon. The canyon was three blocks from my home. On the other side of this desert wasteland resided the canyon boys. The canyon boys were kids who grew up in the projects. Back then, the projects were an all-white, subsidized housing complex. There was great animosity between the canyon boys and the neighborhood boys (of which I thought I was one). On one occasion, the two warring factions decided to have a grand battle in my backyard, with only the drainage ditch to separate us. The weapon of choice was not guns or knives, but dirt clods.

Each party gathered on their side of the ditch with ammo piled high. At the sound of the war cry, the rumble began. Terrible words I had never heard before flew back and forth across the ditch. Words like greaser, slimeball, snoboh my, how times have changed.

At one point during the battle, one of the canyon boys broke the rules and threw a brick. Right about the time it left his hand, I peeked from behind a tree and served as the bulls-eye for his assault. The brick landed square in the middle of my forehead and immediately blood gushed down my furrowed brow. A hush fell over the battleground. Then I pierced the silence with, You cheated!

At the sight of blood, the enemy scattered in every direction. My fellow soldiers (or hoodlums) gathered round, fearing I had suffered a fatal blow. It didnt really hurt that badly from what I remembernot nearly as bad as the spanking I received from my mom later that evening.

Well, the doctor shaved a bit of hair from my forehead and sewed me back together. For several weeks I proudly wore a Cyclopes patch as a badge of courage and bravery.

And now? My hair never completely grew back, and I still have a scar right in the middle of my forehead at the edge of my hairline. Bangs have been a struggle ever since.