"Will Our Scars Show in the Afterlife?"

The Rev. Tommy Davidson, like me, is one of a rotating group of columnists writing on Faith on Life in the Newport News Daily Press. His column this morning was "Will Our Scars Show in the Afterlife?" The topic presents a dual challenge of being both sensitive and somewhat speculative. He handled it well.

The occasion for the article was a new statue of Christopher Newport erected near here at Christopher Newport University. Newport was the captain of the small fleet that brought the Jamestown settlers over from England. He had lost one of his arms prior to that trip. The statue has both arms. Should it?

Davidson didn't answer that question directly (he didn't need to), but it started him on some fruitful reflections, including:

"Our pain and our losses and our battle injuries become part of our story, our biography. They are just as significant and as formative as the happy, whole, positive portrait we usually try to present to those around us.... But Christians learn that failures and illnesses and deprivations are some of the tools that God uses to shape us and make us richer, stronger individuals."

...

"It may be that [in heaven] the tracks of our troubles will be dimly seen in our changed physiques as trophies of God's grace and as reminders that it was our adversities that really molded our godly character."

Posted: Sat - September 1, 2007 at 10:12 AM |

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"Will Our Scars Show in the Afterlife?"

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson