Whether scars are small or large, whether they represent physical or emotional injury, we all want to be free of them. Our mental health is sometimes at stake. Plastic surgeons here in Indiana and in most states offer removal of physical scars. But what those deeper, often unspoken wounds that seem to scar consciousness? My colleague from Nigeria, Moji Solanke, writing for the July 12, 2015 edition of The Guardian, offers a comforting and healing glimpse of scar removal for the broken and traumatized heart. Here’s Moji:
A scar is a constant reminder of a wound from the past. It may serve as evidence of a horrible event, useful only in establishing guilt in a court case for example, but it also prevents the individual from fully letting go of the memory of the hurt that may have attended the wound. Scars can be unsightly, resulting in the telling and re-telling of the sad experience. Some psychologists opine that verbalising a negative experience may lessen the mental damage, over time. Scars can be physical or emotional. Emotional scars, by their very nature, are invisible, internalised, yet they govern the attitudes, thoughts, even decisions of the sufferer….but the unassailable truth is that God can heal emotional wounds and dissolve the scars….