by Elizabeth Stewart

Created on: May 23, 2008

Scars.

My first scar happened when I was six years old.
I had been sent to a mini-session at Seneca Hills Bible Conference in Franklin, PA. This was surely a gamble for my parents, as I was the shy child, but I took to the idea quite well.
I had been taking some sort of medication, for what I am not sure. Possibly a cold, sinus infection, or perhaps chronic headaches. But the liquid was a sticky, milky orange, and tasted as bad as it looked.

After lunch and before the mandated rest period - naptime, if you will - I was to be ushered to the nurses station to be administered my dosage.
For whatever reason, my counselor forgot to take me, and I reminded her once we were back to the cabin. She granted me permission to go to the nurses station on my own on the promise of returning quickly.
And so I ran.
The cabins at Seneca Hills are at the top of one of these said hills. A long gravel driveway runs along the side and winds down around towards the entrance of camp, where the nurse's station is. Running downhill requires a certian degree of finesse, one that a clumsy six year old such as myself could never manage.
And so I fell.
The fall startled me, sliding facefirst into the sharp shards of stone, embedding them in my palms and knees. But I was soon to get up and continue to the nurse's station, where I was headed anyway.
I arrived inside to find the cabin overflowing with campers needing or wanting attention. I stood quietly in the corner inside the door, waiting my turn. I did not cry. Not even a sniffle. No disgust at the blood streaming from my palms and my right knee, which ran down my leg, staining my white sock and my white canvas sneaker. In fact, I was fascinated by it. Someone finally noticed me and cried out. I was immediately bumped up to first priority while the nurse gently cleaned my wounds as best s/he could, then decided that I needed more urgent care. The nurse notified the resident director, and I was patched up enough for travel and was piled into a car to be transported to the doctor that the camp held on retainer for the summer.
I didn't cry when the doctor dug through the flesh on my knee to find the smallest pieces of gravel that had invaded my body. I was holding two fingers of the resident director, and he told me that I was to squeeze them if it hurt too much. I never gripped any harder than simply holding them while I was transfixed by the happenings on my knee.
The doctor told me I had two options. He could clean me up and bandage my knee,

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