I had the joy of seeing my brother Andy on the last day of 2017 and the first day of 2018. We have many things in common as brothers and friends, but there are really two things that make us stand out from most other brothers. The first is that we both have major scars.
I don’t know any two brothers who can tout as many stitches and staples as the two of us. They literally number in the hundreds. He won his when he took a bullet to the gut during a hunting trip (a story for another day). I won mine when I almost removed my right arm from my body, severing my thumb into nine pieces while working on a garage door (again, a story for another day).
Neither of these life-threatening situations was fun. In fact, they were extremely painful, bloody and have left our bodies with scars we will carry for the rest of our lives. Which brings me to the second thing we have in common.
Our scars don’t determine our tomorrow. Do you know why? Because those wounds are in the past and we’ve chosen to leave them ther