Today’s guest post comes from our friend, Karis Wagner, a college student from North Carolina.
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Of all the scars I’ve earned in my short lifetime, the ones I’m proudest of are on my feet. They’re not much… just simple lines running along the inside length of each foot. Why on earth, you might ask, would I be proud of scars on my feet? That is simple: I bear these scars with pride because of how I earned them.

Last summer, I was given the opportunity to volunteer at a Christian camp for six weeks. Before I left for camp, I went shopping and bought a pair of Crocs (as that appeared to be the footwear of choice among the staff at camp).

For the first day or two, I had no problems; then, I started getting marks on my feet. These Crocs, primarily due to the insane amount of rain we were getting that made them constantly wet, rubbed parts of my feet raw. At one point, the rubbing was so bad I had to try to keep band-aids on them (that went about as well as one could expect at a camp).

I determined to not let a pair of Crocs defeat me. I kept wearing them stubbornly attempting to force my feet adjust.

It took almost the entire summer. I wore them every day, at every activity, and sometimes even in the creek. The only time I switched my footwear was when I put on my church shoes in the evening for chapel. After a while, it stopped bothering me.

Towards the end of summer, I happened to glance at the ugly red marks on my feet and think of what they meant about this summer. The Lord brought a verse to my memory as I sat there on my cabin porch that afternoon. Isaiah 52:7 says, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!” As I sat there, I suddenly realized that the scars left by those Crocs were not something to worry about or to despise. Rather, they were a reminder to me that I spent weeks sharing the gospel with campers. They were beautiful.

This summer, the Lord blessed me with the opportunity to win three girls to Him and I counseled a few more girls on other matters. For a few weeks, I was able to make a difference in the lives of these girls that I would not have if I had not come. The fact that I chose to wear a particular type of shoe had nothing to do with my ability to serve Christ, but I look at the lines left on my feet and remember the summer I won my first soul to the Lord… and my second… and my third. As long as I am blessed to have these scars (unless the Lord chooses to allow them to fade), I will bear them with honor, recognizing them for what they are: a beautiful picture of the time I was able to share the gospel.

So often, we look at ourselves as if we have no beauty. We define ourselves by what society says, by what the people in the magazine look like, by what the ladies on the TV do with their hair or makeup. We tend to forget—and I myself am guilty of this, so I understand—that there is a beauty found in us that does not come from earthly things. This beauty lies in what we choose to do with our lives. My mother has beautiful hands. I hardly ever see them when they are not actively doing something. My sister has beautiful eyes. She sees when people are hurting and knows just what to do to help.

Rather than defining beauty as an earthly aesthetic, we can define it as a result of patterning our lives on Christ. Think of how far Jesus and His disciples walked. They more than likely had their fair share of scars and bruises. And yet feet that walked the dusty roads stepped out onto the shore of the Sea of Galilee the day a demoniac was set free. Feet that got bruised and cut took a journey to Lazarus’s grave, and he was brought back to life. Feet that were used to long, hard trips took the agonizing road to Calvary so our sins could be paid for and we could be set free. 

We can’t do any of that, but we can everyday follow the Great Commission in Matthew 28: 19-20 to “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” 

As you go about your day, look for ways to share the gospel. Take the opportunities the Lord provides to serve him. Let your feet be beautiful from carrying the gospel. Let your hands be beautiful from reaching out to others. Let your voice be beautiful from telling people the good news of Christ Jesus.

I did not expect at the beginning of the summer that I would come home with scars on my feet. If I were given the opportunity, I would not trade them for the world.
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Amy Carmichael, a missionary, once wrote a poem entitled “No Scar?” that convicts and encourages me each time I read it:

Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land;
I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star.
Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent,
Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned.
Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And piercèd are the feet that follow Me.
But thine are whole; can he have followed far
Who hast no wound or scar?

My prayer for you, sweet girl reading this devotional, is not that your life would be easy and without trial or pain, but that you would earn the scars of a Christian who follows Jesus closely and obeys His will daily.