scarred

gloriana eloise. age 1. a few hours after eye surgery. 

She had already had a bunch of little things wrong with her. 
Some big things too, but many many little ones. 
Physically only, in every other way - she seemed just perfect to us. 
But she spent the first six months of her life scary scrawny. Her blue on fire eyes screaming at us almost louder than her mouth did. We went through little problem after little problem, bouncing her in the middle of the night and patting her bottom through church services and giving ourselves wrinkles that the early twenties shouldn't know. 
So the day I found a little cyst on the top of my little lady baby's eye - I knew not to worry too, too much. There were always little health problems with her and the Lord was always using them for His glory. That was her story, our Glory girl. 


Just after she turned a year old, we planned to have the cyst removed and her surgery was easier and harder than I expected. Easier and quicker, because a little lady with such tenacity OF COURSE can't stay sedated long (meds got nothing on her) and harder because she was awake and screaming when I walked into the post-op room. The blue-on-fires were screaming louder than ever. She really needed me. Maybe for the first time. 


A year and a half later, we'd had another baby and had made a big move and were on vacation and oops - she rocked me so hard in my rocking chair that she knocked an antique lamp over onto my face, very nearly blinding me in the process. We were both more than a little shook up and to this day, she still traces her little fingers over the dots of scar tissue just beneath my left eye. Sometimes she'll even lean over and kiss them and remind me that she's sorry. Of course then, I have to scoop her up and kiss all over the matching scar tissue she has from her cyst surgery - reminding her that it couldn't be farther from her fault and that I'm so glad we match. With our little minute scars that I'm almost afraid will fade. 


We're both scarred, my little lady baby and I. 
On the outside - I'm so thankful for her beautiful scar and her beautiful face and her crazy curly hair. I never expected that having such a gorgeous daughter would make me feel more comfortable with my outsides, too. But when people say we look alike or that she is just a "mini-Jessi", even though I know she really looks like her Daddy, my heart feels happy and more than thankful to be connected to her. And still... so much more, on the inside - I am just weepingly thankful for the hope in Christ that covers all scars. The inside ones I have that I'm just starting to shed light on. The future ones that I'd give my life to keep her from having. The ones I will try harder than harder to keep from giving her, but I will inevitably, as much as I try not to, leave one or two. 


I think back to that day in the hospital room, when I scooped her right up and those violently scared eyes were screaming at me and in the moments that followed, I felt her need for my help so deeply for the first time. What if I'd ignored her poor busted up eye and not treated it? The scar would be a disformity,  a disfunction that could have just been an endearing trait. So, lady baby - let's not ignore these scars of ours and let's sure not hide them. I'll show you mine, in time and in appropriateness, and we'll keep showing them to the One who's scars have healed our own. 


I picked "scarred" from Mama Kat's writers workshop list of prompts this week.
Also, I love my daughter a whole, whole, whole lot.