06/08/2026
Some scars donât live where people can see them.
They arenât the kind that leave marks on skin or stories people ask about. Theyâre the ones tucked beneath sweaters and smiles, hidden behind âIâm fineâ and âIâm just tired.â
Most people never see them. They donât see the rejection that still affects the way you view yourself. The grief you carry into ordinary days. The words spoken over you years ago that still echo when youâre already feeling vulnerable. The disappointment that taught you not to get your hopes up too high. The anxiety that makes your mind run circles around situations that everyone else seems to navigate without a second thought.
I think the hardest part of it all is that it takes some of us decades to even talk about the deepest scars. The traumas of the past that shaped who weâve become. The things we learned to carry in silence. The things we convinced ourselves werenât important enough to mention. The things we buried because talking about them felt harder than pretending we were okay.
And truth is,I sometimes feel a little heartbroken for my younger self.
For the years I spent keeping quiet to keep the peace. For the things I carried alone because I didnât know what else to do with them. For the hurt I learned to minimise. For the wounds I tried to outrun, outwork,and push down deeper instead of acknowledging. I spent so much energy trying to be okay that I never stopped to ask whether I actually was.
And that girl of my youth, oh, I wish she had been brave enough to talk about those scars with her Heavenly Father.
I wish she had known she didnât have to hide.
I wish she had known that God wasnât waiting for her to get over it before approaching Him.
I wish she had known that He already saw it all anyway.
Instead, she turned her head and hoped He didnât notice how broken she was. She hoped He wouldnât look too closely at the parts she was trying so desperately to keep hidden. She carried things that were crushing her because somewhere along the way she believed it was easier to stay silent than to be seen. Easier to smile than explain. Easier to cope than confess how much it hurt.
Looking back now, I realise how much scar tissue built up over the years. Not because I was weak, but because wounds rarely heal properly when theyâre hidden in the dark. They harden around the edges. They become part of how we see ourselves, part of how we move through the world, part of the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what weâre worth.
And isnât that what so many of us do?
We adapt around our wounds. We learn how to function with them.
We build our lives around the tender places and eventually stop expecting healing. We become the woman who never asks for help. The woman who keeps everyone at armâs length. The woman who apologises too much. The woman who struggles to believe sheâs worthy of love. The woman who assumes everyone will eventually leave. The woman who keeps serving, keeps giving, keeps showing up, while quietly carrying pain nobody else can see.
After a while, we stop calling them wounds.
We just call it who we are.
But I donât think Jesus looks at our hidden scars and says, âYouâll just have to live with that forever.â
I think He gently invites us closer.
Not with shame. Not with disappointment. Not with a lecture about how we should be further along by now.
But with compassion.
The kind that sits beside us in the middle of the mess. The kind that understands every detail. The kind that isnât intimidated by how long weâve carried it. The kind that already knows the full story and loves us anyway.
Because healing doesnât begin when we finally become strong enough. Healing begins when weâre finally honest enough.
Honest about what happened. Honest about how much it hurt. Honest about the ways it shaped us. Honest enough to stop pretending weâre unaffected by things that left deep marks on our hearts.
The beautiful thing about Jesus is that He isnât put off by old wounds. He isnât discouraged by the scars weâve learned to hide. He sees them all, the obvious ones and the buried ones, and He loves us completely anyway.
He sees the woman who still flinches when certain memories surface.
He sees the woman who learned to survive before she learned to heal.
He sees the woman who is exhausted from carrying things she was never meant to carry alone.
And He isnât asking her to have it all figured out. Heâs simply asking her to come closer.
Perhaps thatâs the hope for all of us.
Not that the scars never happened. Not that the past didnât leave marks. But that God is still able to bring healing to the places weâve simply learned to live around.
And maybe,the scars beneath the sweater arenât proof that youâre broken.
Maybe theyâre proof that you survived.
And maybe the God who carried you through it all isnât finished healing you yet.
I hope you feel this to your core today â¤ď¸
-Little Sparrow Loved.
âHe heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.â- Psalm 147:3
littlesparrowloved.substack.com
