Finding out that I have been incubating feelings of shame has been sobering. Sobering, because how I see myself is in direct opposition to a person who is held bound in shame. I don’t hold a low opinion of myself and my worth. Though I thought more highly of myself when I was younger, I still hold myself in high regard. So, to discover shame, and admit that it is shame, has been humbling to say the least.
Shame is too weighty a word. It carries history, weakness, mistakes, errors; it upends one’s entire identity. So, what is shame? I learned it’s a deep, painful sense that you are flawed, unworthy, or unacceptable. Unlike guilt, which points to a behaviour --- you did something wrong--, shame says “there’s something wrong with you.” As I was reading the definition, I asked myself if this was truly how felt, and I wondered why.
Some weeks prior, I lamented to a friend that there are things I wish I’d done better, responded better to, demanded better, fought more/harder for; and if I’d done so, things would be different right now. If I’d been a little bit brave, believed in myself a tad more, things could’ve been different. I knew what I wanted, so why did I choose the opposite? I asked myself: what is wrong with me?
I didn’t see shame rearing its head, attempting to gain my attention. I saw myself as the problem because I was the common denominator. And yet, that didn’t feel right either. And with all the praying, and fasting and intercession… was I just going through the motions? How does one pray and do all the seemingly right things and still miss it? Does that even make sense?
During his Easter message, my pastor said that we ought to examine ourselves and our lives, and since then, I’ve been wondering, questioning, attempting to make sense of an inward discomfort. What’s different? What’s changed? If we believe in all these things we read, and say, and the rituals we perform concerning Easter, or Christmas, observing corporate fasts, or whatever thing we choose to observe in the name of Jesus, what is it leading to? What do I believe? I know what I say, but what is actually in my heart?
In inquiring within myself I discovered that there’s another belief I’m holding unconsciously. I wondered to myself: am I ashamed of something? Why? Do I feel that I should have something that I don’t have right now? Am I ashamed of the path that life is taking me right now? Should I have figured out some things right now that I haven’t?
At the same time, am I not in Christ, encouraging myself with all sorts of scripture? But why am I still in bondage?
Because we do not believe. We believe what shame says. Shame has proof: proof of our weaknesses, proof of our errors, our mistakes; we ought to have known better, done better. And what makes shame truly poisonous is that it takes these errors and says that’s who we are. Our actions cease to be merely acts of bad judgement and errors of ignorance. To shame, that is our identity.
Is that why it’s hard to release yourself from it? Because it attacks and attaches itself to our root, is that why it’s hard to relinquish? If you don’t have a root, who are you? A lie at that point is better to believe than enduring the void of not knowing who you are.
Thus, I considered the parts of my life that brought me shame; and I saw shame for the liar that it is. I reflected on the purpose of Easter, about the redemptive blood of Jesus and weighed it against the belief that I held. I told God that, if all that we are celebrating is true, then all this that I’ve been holding is a lie. I concluded that the decisions that brought such dissatisfaction in my life had all been based on a lie of some sort. And I was wrong for believing the lie, even if I didn’t know. If I had not believed lies, lies told, well-meaning words that were essentially lies, my actions would have been different. I believed the wrong thing, so I did the wrong thing.
And just like that, shame was no more. I felt it lift off me like a bird taking flight. I suppose it was time; I have been feeling like there’s a weight that I can’t explain that I need to get rid of. Its lift off helped me understand how poisonous and dangerous shame is. By it, we construct walls of pride to hide our vulnerability, assembling all sorts of defensive mechanisms to avoid weakness. But the more we do that, the farther we’re getting from who God called us to be. God gives us one face, but we make ourselves another.
That’s why repentance becomes important. You acknowledge your wrong; you don’t marinade in it and create an identity out of it. God has given you an identity, and you make yourself another; oblivious to how vulnerable to manipulation and deception you’ve become. You’ll operate according to who people think you ought to be, and not who God sent you on earth to be. You relinquish the best of yourself for the version dictated by human beings whose perspective is as limited and finite as yours. Either way, the control you think you have, you don’t have it.
Nevertheless, when you meet grace and mercy, you must allow them to release you from all that is holding you in bondage, shame included. You are of God, and you must relentlessly lay hold of who He says you are, in order to destroy the power of shame. Examine yourself in sincerity. The truth of who you are supersedes the evidence of any past or present error.
