Steinbeck was right

TO BE ALIVE AT ALL IS TO HAVE SCARS.

This haunting line comes from John Steinbeck's novel, The Winter of Our Discontent.

What about you? What wounds do you carry?

I know that some of you have scars from cancer. Others have a colostomy. Still others have suffered an amputation.

One of us had a lung transplant and is now waiting for another. Still others have gone through open heart surgery.

And what about those who have had hip or knee replacements. Others have had rotator cup repaired, or a gall bladder removed.

With Mother's Day just a few days ahead, I think of those who underwent a C-section, and those who know the pain of a miscarriage or stillbirth.

TO BE ALIVE AT ALL IS TO HAVE SCARS.

Not all wounds are on the outside. Many carry scars from an abusive childhood, or a bitter divorce.

Others carry the burden of loneliness or grief.

There are those who have been wounded by depression. Still others from schizophrenia or dementia.

And what about sexual assault?

TO BE ALIVE AT ALL IS TO HAVE SCARS.

Tens of thousands of our neighbors are refugees. Many suffer from PTSD as the result of what they endured before coming to America.

All around us are those afflicted by the moral injuries of war.

TO BE ALIVE AT ALL IS TO HAVE SCARS.

We dare not overlook or minimize the wounds of discrimination, racism, and oppression.

As I type this, we've reached the halfway point in our seven-week long celebration of Easter.

Let's not forget that our resurrected Savior still bears His wounds of love.

BY HIS WOUNDS WE ARE HEALED.

LIFE'S JUST A PERPETUAL PIECING TOGETHER OF BROKEN BITS.

So wrote Edith Wharton.

This is most certainly true. For now.

Until He returns.