Scars.....a road map to memories.
Of a morning, when I am cleaning up for another day's adventure, my eyes seem to search out the old scars on my body, of past deeds, misdeeds, mistakes and lessons learned. I see the scar that cuts through my right eyebrow and up on my forehead....I remember driving my 1936 Pontiac sedan, which I had bought from working in the hay fields the summer of my 15th birthday..driving it on a back gravel Ozark road with the lights off...playing tag with my buddy, Bucky Goss, who was driving his folks 1952 Chevy, also with the lights off...on a night as black as the inside of an Angus bull...we found each other with a head on, and since I was driving with my head out the window, trying to see where I was going, when we hit...my forehead hit the metal divider for the wing window...and thus the scar for the rest of my life. Lesson learned: Don't do that, it hurts.
My eyes travel down to my right shoulder..where a scar worms across the upper meat...1960, my dad and I were stretching a barbed wire fence strand so tight that the wire parted and whipped back across my shoulder like a razor, cutting it to the bone. Lesson: Sure, it hurt, but the memory of working on something with my dad is what endures, not the pain. Pain is for a little while, dad's are forever. Then, there is the scar on my left thumb, still fresh looking after twenty something years. My son, Scott, and I were fishing in the Upper Mississippi River in Wisconsin, when he hung our first Northern Pike. Now, I am a bass fisherman and had no knowledge of Norther Pike at all....when Scott got the big Northern up to the boat, I reached down with my left hand to "lip" the fish and pull him in the boat. The Northern Pike, already pretty mad from the fight, grabbed hold of my thumb with those razor sharp teeth and like to have chewed it off. Lesson learned:
Know your fish in whatever territory you are fishing. But, the memory of my son catching that big fish...that is what has endured, and will as long as I have a memory. Other scars, other memories, all in a life's work. Mistakes leave scars, just like in everything we do in life, we remember them, but God forgives all our mistakes, the scars might remain, but the pain is gone. Lesson learned: Trust God for everything, follow His is leading, don't try to run ahead without Him, turn the reins over to Him and enjoy the ride.
-Stan
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