Scar Tissue

When I was pregnant with my first child, my daughter, I was over the moon. I did everything right, no alcohol, ate well, daily exercise, read all about breastfeeding, and nutrition, and baby stimulation, swaddling and developmental milestones. I attended yoga classes, and visited my obstetrician and planned for a magical natural birth.

God has His own plans, something I learned by countless times of hitting the same ‘control’ wall. 

She was born after 27-hour labour and no dilation leaving us with the only option of emergency c-section. A far cry from the natural bliss I imagined and planned for.

The wound healed, my daughter thrived, and life carried us forward. A few years later, my son arrived after 36-hour of stubborn, determined labour, this time, natural. Different journeys, both miracles.

Still, the scar remains. At first it felt like failure, a reminder of what my body couldn’t do. But over time it became something else. A marker of surrender. A reminder to let go of how I thought things should be and to trust in how they unfolded. A reminder that even in the chaos, the gift was still there. Isn’t that what scars do? They remind us where we’ve been, even when we’d rather forget.

The scar tissue underneath is still tender. It carries the memory of what could have been. The plans that fell apart. The sudden chaos. The dreams that were rewritten. The twist in the story I didn’t choose. It reminds me that life does not bend to my control, and maybe it shouldn’t. Because even with the pain and the surrender, the result was still something wonderful.

Sometimes, when I run my fingers over it, I feel the same ache I do when I trace the outline of his name in my mind. Different stories, same lesson. Both leave a mark. Both remind me that God’s plan was not my plan.

Scar tissue does not only live in the body. It builds around the heart too.  It carries the memory of what was once so alive, so certain, yet could not last. It gathers from the breakups, the betrayals, the losses we didn’t plan for. When I see the thin line across my stomach, I feel the thin line across my heart, there is scar tissue there too; and I think of him as well. His name still carries the same pain. It reminds me of what I thought would be, of what I had to release, of the future that dissolved in my hands. Different stories, same lesson. Both left me with something I didn’t want but had to accept. Both taught me how to let go.

The body heals, the heart heals, but scar tissue never disappears. It is always there, sensitive to the touch, carrying echoes of the past. And maybe that is the point. To remind us that while pain may not disappear, it can transform. That even the deepest wounds can harden into something that still lets us move, live and love.

The scar across my skin. The scar across my heart. Both speak the same truth: life rarely follows the plan, yet even in the mess, something beautiful can be born. Same story told two ways. Same truth underneath. Both leave a mark. 

Scar tissue is visible in the body and invisible in the heart. And just like the line across my skin, it will always be there. Sensitive. Permanent. A reminder that some wounds never vanish, they just learn how to live with us, and of how love and loss sometimes share the same scar.