It’s a common theme, picking at scabs attached to my heart. In my latter years I’ve learned to leave them alone, knowing that even untouched and unscratched, they will never heal. For years I would pick at them, hoping that underneath I would find warmth and a sense of healing, but that never happened. A picked at scab only ever revealed fresh, unhealed flesh. Pink and raw, ready to begin the process of growing a new scab. It’s a literal thing – the heart beats, blood flows, but the scabs remain.

I’ve often thought of a healing heart as something warm and pink, beating loud, blood rushing in through one side and out through another. The truth though for me is my heart will always beat in spite of the pain it feels. It will always endure any cuts that are made, it will always defend itself by forming hard crusty scabs. It’s a survival thing, a way to make it through a long life of hard blows and jubilant rebounds. The scabs are actually a fortress, made of sponge, absorbing all the tenderness and washing away all the debris ….