I recently ended up in a conversation with a young woman who, like me, had recently been given the immense and impossible task of being a mother. And although we were both Christians, it was there our similarities ended. This new mom had spent a certain number of months in a home for girls with a variety of problems, “issues” she said. Some of the girls had been molested, some had eating disorders, some were obsessive compulsive, and some cut themselves.
Only in the last year or so I have I heard of this trend or fad called cutting or self-mutilation. This particular girl had not cut herself, but told me about many girls she had met who did. She told me about the scars that ran down their arms and over their wrists. She said some of the girls used cutting as a means to vent their anger, fear, or frustration.
After we talked about her experiences for a while, we fell into the subject that is inevitable for new moms – our birth experiences. Since I had a cesarean, she asked me about my scar. Before the cesarean, the scar was the thing I dreaded the most. I thought it would be this huge ugly line, and it is a long (5 inches) red mark on my body. But I do not think it is ugly anymore. It is where my baby came from safe and sound instead of a risky breech birth. It is lower on my body and shorter than I expected. It does not hurt and is not raised. I am told it will fade to white eventually. I have positive feelings about my scar. Still, my conversation partner seemed horrified at the idea of any scar. Scars reminded her of these girls cutting themselves.
I grow cynical listening to people blame their actions on their poor mental health or life experiences, and I hardly think anyone’s “issues” are a valid excuse for certain behaviors, but to express yourself in cutting your skin shows clearly that these people are not healthy or mature. I can’t compare my life with some one who had to grow up being raped by their father or being bounced among foster homes. I can’t imagine what those sorts of things do to a young developing mind. Yet in spite of all these hardships, individuals are still responsible for their actions before God.
I have always thought issues were areas of your life where you still functioned as a child – places where you have not grown up (you spend all your money frivolously, you tend to lie, you worry about what others are thinking of you). Cutting your own skin, causing yourself pain isn’t the same kind of issue. Those issues are issues of self-centeredness. Hurting yourself is an issue of self-worth. Christ is the answer on both fronts. He longs to be the center of our lives and His death gives us a sense of worth. Our lives are valuable to him, so valuable that he wants to be the center of them.
