I am a family medicine physician. I have treated many patients who suffered lacerations. Most times I stitched them together, but some injuries were better left open to heal by secondary intention. This means that the edges of the wound were not brought together by sutures or staples; the body mended by filling in the gash slowly with scar tissue. Often this method is employed when the wound is especially dirty or contaminated, or if hours have elapsed between the injury and the time the patient sought treatment. It takes a lot longer for the wound to close this way than if it had been sewn up. The result is usually not pretty, either. Scar tissue is not always easy to hide.

All of us have been wounded. Sometimes we can stitch ourselves up and bury the unsightliness underneath with hardly a scar showing. Sometimes we have to heal slowly, and the nastiness is out there for all to see until eventually we get our protective skin back again. We are afraid that others will see our ugliness, and we try to cover it up. We will always be more vulnerable to reinjury in that area.

I intend for this blog to be about secondary intention: the slow process of learning to live again, learning to live a different life than what we first expected, learning how to live with vulnerability, learning to live life from the inside out.