Going through life, we get scars. Everyone knows this and everyone has the scars to show it.

Some of us have physical scars from accidents, abuse, issues or other things that have happened in our lives. But, even more of us have emotional scars; scars that cannot be seen. The scars that leave their mark deep beneath the skin.

These scars are hard to see and harder to heal.

But one thing is true. Everyone has scars.

In our world of social media, appearance is everything. We put forth our best image. We post pictures of all the cool things we have done, and all the perfect things in our life. We expect a snapshot to summarize our life.

We post what we want people to see.

You see, the problem is that, after a while, we let these mask grow on us and become our identity. We no longer become a human with scars, stories and experiences. We become a mask, a ghost of the Internet. We become someone who has the "perfect life".

But all that is a lie.

We are so focused on creating these false masks that we don't allow people into our lives in an intimate manner. We don't let our walls down and allow them to see us for who we truly are.

When we truly open up and show our scars, we reach a whole new level of intimacy and learn what it means to be close to someone. Having that someone to turn to and share our scars is one of the things that makes us human.

But in our social media world, we have lost empathy and refuse to relate to others. We would rather show them how great our life looks online and would never open up and let someone in or expose our scars to someone else.

I have a couple of friends who know my deepest scars. I have shared some of my scars with quite a few people. I have found power in sharing my scars. Not because I am bragging about the stuff I have done or has been done to me, but because it shows that I am human, I make mistakes.

Being a youth minister, a lot of people assume I have my life together and it is perfect. Even in college, when I was just a Bible major, a lot of people viewed me like this and did not know that I struggled with many of the same things as they did and when I did fail, I fell from a pedestal they set me on.

Both of these are bad things we need to stop in society. I have seen it happen lately with mega-church pastors who have resigned/been fired form churches for their struggles with sins of various degrees.

We live in a broken world filled with broken people, but we refuse to accept other's brokenness. We can see our own, but we could never imagine our pastor, minister, parents, friends, favorite athletes or celebrities to be broken and imperfect. We fail to see that they are human and will and made mistakes.

As a minister, I use my own brokenness as an avenue to reach into other peoples' lives. But everyone can. Everyone has scars and stories to tell and we all can reach out to someone who may have similar scars as us. Opening up to someone and telling them about your scars will give them a sense of reality, because they can see that someone else has scars, too.

You see, life is a lot like an AA meeting. Everyone there is broken and has something to offer. All we need to do is open ourselves up.

Hello, my name is Tyler and these are my scars...