A dead heart doesn’t scar.
Scars don’t matter on the dead. No one thinks of their scars – their bodies are cold, dead, in the ground.
Scars matter on the living – they tell a story on those of us who are alive. They are a reminder that our bodies are a living, breathing, duplicating group of cells; that our cells form a body subject to those wounds that come from accidents and illness.
Scars are not only reminders that the body is alive, they are reminders that our hearts are alive. Let me say it again: A dead heart doesn’t scar. But when it’s alive to love and pain, sorrow and joy then it is vulnerable to the people who come in and leave their marks – whether good or bad.
A heart may be scarred but it’s still alive – and being alive means there is room for hope.
The dead don’t scar; only the living do. My scarred heart stands as ‘proof of life’.~Alece Ronzino
And a heart that is alive feels grief, feels separation.
Bettie Addleton – a longtime friend of my parents now turned friend of mine – is a regular reader to Communicating Across Boundaries. She sent this quote today by way of email and it speaks wisdom into grief, gratitude into scars from loss, and hope into wounds from separation. So I’ll end with these words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
“There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not attempt to do so.
One must simply hold out and endure it.
At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort.
For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it.
It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve – even in pain – the authentic relationship.
Further more, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation.
But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.”~Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Marilyn R. Gardner 
Thank you for this beautiful post which could not be more timely. No surprise to me, since so often your subjects are those that I am also searching. Thanks to Bettie for the Bonhoeffer quote; it is meaningful beyond words to me as I grieve the loss of my beloved brother-in-law, and I will pass it on to my sister today. Bonhoeffer could have been writing about their marriage, one of the best I’ve ever known. There is comfort in knowing that a great love can never be replaced or forgotten and that sweet gratitude can transform torment into silent joy. May it be so.
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Cath – I am so sorry I missed this comment. Please know you are loved during this time. I’m so sorry for all the grief and loss. So glad for a God who comforts beyond words.
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