A large willow grew in the backyard of our family home in International Falls.  Before I became a big sister, my dad hung a tire swing for my older brother and I.  When we moved to Goodridge in 1987, the tire swing came with us. Dad hung it on the tree in front of the parsonage when my baby sister was born. Over the years he changed the rope a few times. It was well loved.  My children and many of my nieces and nephews and the neighbor kids swung in it. 

Last May I finally cleaned everything out of shed at the parsonage where I had served as pastor following my father’s retirement as pastor in the Goodridge Parish.  I knew when I accepted the call to Zion in Thief River Falls, taking the swing down would be one of the last pieces of the move.  On a beautiful sunny morning, I set a ladder under the tree and got to work.  I was using a pitch fork to pry the rope loose and nearly fell.  I ought to have had a spotter but this was a job I wanted to do alone.  I approached it with care even if I wasn’t being careful.  I started taking pictures when I realized how much a part of the tree the swing had become.  It took a while to bring the old, tired swing down.  When I finally pried it free from the tree, the scar that was now clear, so deep and prominent, impressed me.  The tree spent a lot of years with the swing and the rope pulling on it, growing with it. 

Someday, someone may look at the tree closely and see the scar. They might wonder what was there. Chances are I am one of only a handful of people who can look at the tree and know what made it.  Yet isn’t this true of the scars that we all carry within us and on us?  They are singular hurts, hidden, misunderstood, ignored, and barely noticed by others.

On the 25th of April, it will be two years since my dad’s death from Leukemia.  When I took the swing down, I was forced to deal with a grief I had previously managed to avoid.  My dad always told me I keep moving forward despite what is happening.  I admit I didn’t grieve in a healthy way.  I ate too many sweets and kept working tending to the grief of my congregations who had lost a beloved pastor.  I took care of my kids and tended their grief and was numb to what I was feeling.   Seeing the scar on the tree after over 30 years of being grafted to it took my breath away. The memories and meaning hit and me. I grieved. I felt it in and around me. Looking at the scar, I suddenly had an image of what it is like to live and love and then loose.  I had a picture of what the loss of someone so woven into every part of your life could look like when those connections are stripped away.

I don't know what your scars look like. I don't know which tree in your history bears the marks of your grief. Brokenness, loss, regrets, what ifs and all the other stuff are a part of our humanity. This season we celebrate Easter and our Lord’s triumph over death.  1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” The scars we have in this life will not stay with us forever.  St. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” In Christ, we will know healing, wholeness, and everlasting joy. The tree that bore Christ has taken away the sin and shame of this world.

Our scars mark challenges we have faced, hurts we have felt, growth we have experienced and moments we have endured.  In them we learn strength to persevere and continue through this life journeying toward the future God is making.  I look at the photos of the tree out in Goodridge and today remember more the joy of the swing.  The scar on my heart at the loss of my father remains and some days it hurts more than others. In this life we live with our scars.  Some scars are deeper than others.  Some can even become a memory, covered with patience, care, and time but they never fully go away.

Isaiah 25:7-8 declares, “God will destroy the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the covering that is spread over all nations; God will swallow up death forever.  Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces.” One day our scars will be wiped away and we will know joy.  This is a promise given to a world that God loves and has promised to never forsake.  In our grief, when it seems as if the scars we bear are too painful and heavy, we are called as God’s people to turn to hope.  1 Thessalonians 4:13b reminds us, “We do not grieve as others do who have no hope.”  We have been given Christ Jesus who died that we might live into a world free from death and sorrow and fear.  The mercy of God does this by grace and in love.  This Eastertide we celebrate the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come where mourning and crying and pain will be no more.  Christ Jesus bore his scars to set us free.  Thanks be to God!  May the gift of resurrection be yours this and every season.

Kristin Emma