Have you ever experienced the feeling of constantly needing to hide? Like you have giant red letters written across your forehead stating every single sin you’ve committed?
Or maybe you’ve just felt like you “needed” to d i s c o n n e c t yourself from the world. You might have done that because you felt like you didn’t belong or that no one would get you.
Or, if you are anything like me, you may have felt like you’ve been carrying around a weight. A constant weight that you can physically feel on your shoulders. Every day.
During training camp, I was finally able to give that weight a name: shame.
The relationship I had with the weight of shame that I carried was an interesting one that had gone through different stages. The first stop with shame was a clear example of mutualism. Shame benefitted by having a place to live. And in my mind, I benefitted from it because it was a reminder of what I struggled with, as masochistic as that sounds. I felt like I needed to limit myself because of my personal struggles. I didn’t want to let it go. I felt like the ultimate consequence of my struggles was the reminder of it.
This lie blindly lead me to a place where I didn’t even realize that the relationship of mutualism had quickly turned into a parasitic relationship. (Truthfully, wasn’t it always parasitic?) Shame was literally sucking the life out of me to the point where I would go months on months without speaking to God because I felt He wouldn’t want to hear me.
I then substituted my relationship with the Lord with involvement in ministry. I felt like that was the only way I was going to be close to God. Only if I used what He had given me to serve His people. God had mercy on me, this I know. But what I didn’t know was that His mercy wanted to go beyond me just being able to sing in a church service.
What the enemy will try to do is convince you that you need to punish yourself because of something you’ve struggled with or something you have done. He will try to tell you that there is no way around it and no way out of it. If you listen, you’ll wholeheartedly believe that you have no business going before the Lord for anything at all.
Discouraged isn’t even the word.
Defeated is getting close.
Dying is more fitting.
That is how I was feeling. My heart was so far from God because of shame that I wasn’t allowing for His grace and love to restore my brokenness and make me whole. I allowed for my pride to feed me, when in actuality, it was killing me. Why would I think that I could get life from anywhere else but from THE giver of life?
While at training camp, I had a list of things that I would NOT talk about with anyone, mainly because of my pride and shame. I thought no one would understand. I thought EVERYONE would judge me. I thought no one would accept me or love me through it.
That’s exactly what the enemy wants us to think; that we are all alone and no one, not even Jesus Himself, will understand us. Jesus didn’t come for those that were whole, but those that were sick and broken.
We need to break away from shame and
the lies that come with it.
We first need to identify it. It’s important to not only identify what it is, but confess it to the Lord. We need to allow for the Holy Spirit to guide and speak to us – it’s not our job to “know what to do next”. It’s our job to surrender ourselves to Him. Our whole selves, as broken as we may be.
That was probably the hardest part for me. It was easy for me to identify it, but to then allow myself to go before the Lord and speak to me? After years of hiding? But we need to understand that moments before the Lord are full of power and love. Allowing Jesus to wrap His arms around you, truly, is not only an amazing feeling, but it’s the exact thing you need for restoration. His presence is the safest place to repent and break free.
The most important step of all is to accept His forgiveness and grace. No matter what the content of your shame is, no matter what your sin looks like, God’s grace covers it all.
That’s what I believe. I believe that if it wasn’t for the grace of God, I wouldn’t be here today. If it wasn’t for His grace, I would be painfully lost. But my broken heart was made new because of the power of His grace. My shame was completely undone because His grace.
God’s grace abounds in the deepest of waters.
Allowing for God’s grace to work in your lives in the single most powerfully, life-changing thing you can do. You don’t have to carry your burden anymore. Jesus wants you to lay it down, give you rest, and completely cover you with His love and grace.
Will you let Him do it?
