Shameless

So I was challenged to finally produce this blog. It’s been simmering for a while now but I wasn’t able to adequately put the words together. From the blogs I’ve read and the advice I’ve gotten on writing a blog, I was advised to just let the words flow from and in my own voice. For some, this process might be easy. However, the same is not always true when the blog is about shame and the writer is a victim. Because of shame, my voice is often as fragmented as the rest of me.

It’s interesting to think about being a victim of shame itself. Shame is most often described as the by-product of a trauma or an abusive event. It is defined as an unpleasant, self-conscious emotion associated with a negative evaluation of self which causes you to feel distressed, exposed, mistrust, powerless, worthless, and withdrawn. And that’s not even the worst of it. 

Shame hovers around trauma just waiting for opportunity. It watches trauma do its damage and then seeps into the gaping wound to fill every exposed and vulnerable area. It’s like a spiritual metastatic cancer that eats its way into every healthy cell of your body. It wants to consume you and everything and everyone you love. It’s like a termite of the soul. I guess you can tell by now that me and shame ain’t friends. You may also think I’m being too much with that definition but I know first hand what it can do and how much of life it can steal if left unchecked. 

Held Prisoner in Your Own Life

Because I know the damage that shame can do to a life, I prefer to describe it as a separate being. Just as we don’t like to expose our personal shame, shame itself doesn’t like being exposed and does everything it can to stay hidden. Think of every picture that you’ve seen that represents a person in a state of shame. Their hands are covering their faces and they are often bent over, attempting to shrink into an even deeper place of hiding. When can a destructive force do its worst damage? First, when no one knows it’s there, and second, when no one has the power to stop it. While it's hidden, it grows and it steals. 

Once it’s able to gain a firm grip, it directs your entire life. It decides where you go, who you’re in relationship with, what you eat, what you watch, where you work, how you think, and your habits. This is not an exhaustive list. And some think that shame is only present in the lives of the “down and out”. Au contraire, shame does its best work in the lives of the affluent. Think about it - who would look for it there? After all, why would someone who has all of their needs and most of their wants have reason to be be ashamed? Shame is no respecter of persons and those who are reading now and recognize it in their own lives know exactly what I’m speaking of. 

The Deer in The Headlights

Now that you’ve been exposed, how do you feel? Do you feel as though you want to go even further into hiding or do you just feel paralyzed or do you not quite know what to feel? I find that shame has led me to choose to believe that I have to live as a deer in headlights. Frozen when faced with danger, perceiving everything as danger and as if I have no Protector. It can often make you feel like you are a spectator in your own life - whether you appear to be thriving or barely surviving. Shame is the worst of our personal demons because it knows exactly what we’re most afraid to expose and it blackmails us with it constantly.

The Way Out

I hope that now that you’ve acknowledged Shame’s presence, you are ready to evict it from your life and finally be free. If you’re like the rest of us who are battling to get free, shame has permeated so many areas of your life, you don’t know where or how to begin to untangle its diseased hold on your life. There’s one thing I know for sure. Jesus Christ came to earth to die so that we all can be free and live life abundantly. Abundance does not solely mean material wealth. Abundance comes in many spiritual forms - one of the most powerful and sustaining being in the form of PEACE. Peace may seem to elude you as you battle with the effects of shame but it is possible to get free. First, you have to honestly answer the following question and then COMMIT to the answer you give in order to do so…

Do You Want To Be Well?

This is the question we all must ask ourselves if we seek to emerge from any battle of the spirit or body healed and whole. Do I want to be well? You and I will never get free if we don’t first commit to wanting to be well, free, and whole. Jesus can heal anything but we have to be willing to answer that question for Him first if we hope to receive and sustain healing. The hardest part of this journey is the beginning. Exposing our weaknesses and our humiliations and letting His strength and grace replace them can be excruciating. Not because of any pain Jesus causes but because after a long period of shame, in some cases a lifetime, it is almost impossible to trust anyone, including Jesus. But if you’re like me, my feeble attempts to walk through this process have exhausted me and I am TIRED. Bone tired. I refuse to lose any more of my life to shame. God has too much to do through me and for me to waste another moment being bound. 

My challenge to you is this. Are you willing to see how far He can take you with His strength in place of your weakness? I’ll tell you my story next time. I definitely want to hear yours and we can walk this out together. I can promise you it won’t be easy because shame fights dirty and it doesn’t want to let you go but we will have the victory because Jesus is with us. We may be starting this process feeling like we’re in pieces but, if we trust, He will complete us and we’ll finally be WHOLE. And shameless.

Get ready for the hardest, most exhilarating, most transformative journey of your life. I wouldn’t want to experience this with anyone else.

Until next time,

Tina