Your Scars Are Where the Light Shines Through

I recently watched the resurrection scene from The Passion of the Christ. The stone rolls away and light floods into the tomb, revealing Jesus looking pensive and peaceful. He stands and we see a nail-hole in his hand as he exits the tomb.

As Scripture tells us, Jesus indeed rose from the dead. But his scars were still visible.

It’s the same with people going through divorce. We have died, a thousand little and big deaths. Our identity. Sense of self. Who we once were. When I was married, I wasn’t just me. I was my spouse’s husband. I was a son-in-law. I was an uncle. Then suddenly all those things were ripped away.

You go to a party with old friends and have to explain that you split with your spouse. You go to the doctor’s office and have to check “Divorced” as your status. You run into an old high school friend and have to explain that your marriage didn’t work out. You have to sit alone in church, surrounded by all the married couples. The person you once were—the person you assumed you’d be forever after marriage—is dead now.

Two years before his death, Saint Francis famously received the stigmata, the wounds of Christ on his hands and feet and side. Some people see these mystical wounds as a mysterious gift from God that helped Francis identify with Christ. Others see the stigmata as a grotesque affliction. Either way, he had to walk around bearing these scars.

Stigmata is the plural form of the word stigma, meaning “a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.”

That’s what it feels like after you get a divorce. Like you’re walking around with open, bleeding wounds. Some people look at you with pity and compassion. Others are uncomfortable and prefer to look away. Whether certain people see you as wounded or not, you still feel that way. You feel the hot shame, like you’re disfigured, a moral failure. Like something is wrong with you.

Like Jesus, you’ve died. But like Jesus, you’ve also been resurrected. It was a resurrection you didn’t ask for and never wanted, but here you are, staring out your own own unexpected tomb.  And like Jesus, now you have to stand up and walk out into the light. New life awaits.

After rising from the dead, Jesus still bore his scars. We, as divorced people, will too.

Our scars will always mark us. But they don’t define us.

In fact, they’re evidence of an experience that has made us stronger. As the Switchfoot songs says:

Your scars are like dark stars

Your wounds are where the light shines through

These wounds make us stronger for others who have suffered the same trials. I never wanted to be divorced, but now that I am, I’m able to help others going through the same experience. I can do this in a way I never could have if I had not also been divorced.

Author Thornton Wilder puts it this way:

"Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In love’s service, only the wounded soldiers can serve.”

Yes, as divorce survivors we still carry around our scars. But that’s okay. In reality, it’s a good thing. Like Christ, we get to rise, leave our tombs, and allow God’s light to spill through our wounds onto others in darkness.

When most people think of Jesus rising from the dead, they don’t necessarily think of his wounds. What they remember is that he conquered death and rose again and changed the world in the process. Let’s rise with him and do the same.