This morning I was reading Romans and it told me to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind.” I’ve always loved this verse because it felt a bit like God was telling me to do therapy. And I like that idea.
I like picturing God wowed by the depths of our minds and His creation.
Okay, okay, and maybe I like that God could be wowed by what I do for a living.
In any case, I found myself wondering what on earth He means when he tells us to renew our minds. Maybe it’s getting therapy. Maybe it’s journaling. Or talking to a friend. Or reading the Bible.
But I have a hunch its a lot more than that.
I like to picture our minds like these huge landscapes. Full of wide open plains, some with well worn paths leading to favorite spots, others peppered with crazy wildflowers and overgrown beauty. And then a huge, full, lush forest so thick you can’t see out. So bright green and vivid in spots that your eyes dart around trying to take in the expanse of it all. With other areas so dark they feel like a little cave all its own. Private. Maybe even with a do not disturb wooden door at the bottom of a redwood tree. So big and hovering and ominous.
When I think about transforming myself based on the renewing of my mind, somehow the beautiful wildflowers of my mind never come up.
God doesn’t want those to change, right?
They’re beautiful. They’re gorgeous.
They’re cared for and wanted.
I’m proud of them.
But those dark places. The caves in the forest that I’m holed up in. Rocking in the corner. Almost trying to be invisible. Those must be the ones God wants to change. He has to be waiting on pins and needles for me to give those places up to Him.
I don’t like those places.
I’m ashamed of those places.
I want them gone and I assume God wants them gone. But I’ve got no right to assume anything about God. Or that he wants any part of me gone. That’s my shame talking and, goodness, my shame isn’t from God.
Yeah, let’s say that again.
Shame isn’t from God.
Maybe it’s my job or maybe it’s my own mind, but I feel like far too many of us are dripping with shame. Being crippled by shame.
About something.
About everything.
Your body. Your beauty. Your kids. Your Instagram. Your job. Your career. Your house. Your mess. Your prayer. Your care. Your anger.
Your bathroom.
And I don’t know if some of us are even realizing it. We hear Christian culture or our good friends tell us about what isn’t accepted and we assume we shouldn’t accept that within ourselves. We shame ourselves that it existed in the first place and we shame ourselves when it doesn’t go away after one really great prayer.
Great prayer is still great prayer.
God is still God.
And the only thing that has changed is that you stopped accepting a little part of yourself. Not the action, but the part of you that attached to the action.
Is this making sense? I hope you’re hearing me.
Friends, recently I pulled back another layer in my onion of self. A layer of shame. An awful feeling layer. An ugly-cry-so-hard-cause-it’s-out-in-the-open layer. One I’ve avoided the depths of for somewhere around 20 years.
And it hurts.
The onion is just a metaphor, of course. This is how I’ve grown to understand our “selves.” As a compilation of experience and emotion and soul that lives each day and walks as us. We have levels of awareness about who we are how we live, i.e. each layer of the onion. And I believe, should we decide to, we can peel back the layers and get to know parts of our selves that hide away.
But each layer is like new skin. So fresh and completely tender. When the new layer is touched for the first time, when we begin to have awareness about something we didn’t before, it hurts. At least it always does for me. The new layer, the new skin, it’s not adapted yet for the harshness of the elements in this world. Even the gentlest of winds can feel abrasive. Even the softest of words can cut it.
Recently, I mumbled out the smallest of sentences filled with shame. And just like that, I’m uncovered. I’m new. I’m vulnerable and exposed. It seems like anything can happen. And goodness I don’t want anything to happen.
But maybe, maybe, a part of me does actually want something to happen.
Maybe even needs change to happen.
The emotion that has been held back behind this small sentence, needed out. It needs resolve and planting. It’s felt a bit wild inside of me and needs room to stretch. It needs attention and light and acceptance and love.
See that’s the thing about this wildness when its kept inside.
Shame seeps in.
And grows.
With mean words. And darkness.
And holy goodness the awful of this world, the awful of some good, well-meaning people, can make it so hard to let any emotion, any terrified of us, out. Those rough winds and tough words are the reason we keep the wildness, and then the shame, inside. It’s why we lock it down.
And why we never get to feeling those beautiful, wonderful, bright shiny new layers of us.
Friends, we’ve got to stop doing this to ourselves. We get so caught up in our shame and our guilt and our covering up of our shame and our guilt, that we lose focus on what’s most important.
Loving people. Smiling. Changing. Growing. God. Learning. LIVING in full color.
So what would it be like to let go of it?
Your shame.
That deep feeling that lingers around that one thing.
You know it.
It’s terrifying.
But it isn’t you. It doesn’t make you. It holds you back. It was never meant for you.
And it totally stops you from finding peace.
Finding love. Finding yourself. Finding God.
Give it up. Let go.
Live freer.
Here we go.
Let’s all be brave.
