Sometimes I have a hard time accepting my scar.

I told myself to look at it and think of the love and faithfulness that God has shown me during this trial.

I try to see it as a reminder of my strength! That I am a fighter! That I am tough, resilient, and brave!

But some days, all I see is its ugliness. When I look in the mirror, or notice it on a zoom call, I just see a thick, red, bold reminder of disease.

I’ll be looking at photos that I take with friends and will be taken aback by the harsh contrast between the red on my skin in comparison to the smoothness of everyone else’s.

Sometimes when I examine it closely in the light, I feel my face physically turn in disgust.

Why does it have to be so out in the open? Why couldn’t it be somewhere easily hidden under clothing? Should I hide it with makeup?

I tell myself that this is a petty thing. That it is beneath me to feel insecure about something so superficial. That I told the world I was proud of my scars and that I am a fraud to be staring at it with hate in my own privacy.

In the end, I am human. I am drawn to perfection, to beauty. My neck was sliced open and a large organ was removed through the incision.

That is a remarkable thing. It is also a hideous thing.

Things can be both.

I can be grateful, yet still insecure. I can be amazed, yet still scared.

I am learning to accept that it is okay to feel differently about the same thing at different times.

I am not a fraud to have moments of hate towards the thing that was harming my body. And I am not a fraud to also marvel at the incredibleness that it was removed and taken away from me.