Where perfection exists, shame is always lurking. -Brene Brown
Taking it back to Nepal for a minute, it took me a while to process my thoughts during that month and that’s okay.
One of my fondest memories of Nepal is the day my squad and I went to one of the biggest caves in the world. We walked up about 300 flights of steps to get there. It took a good two hours for everyone to get to the top.
I had finally gotten over my two week long sickness so I was loving the workout! Those two hours climbing were spent in sweet conversations of encouragement and laughter with a couple of ladies. I had never been to a cave, so had no idea what to expect. I knew it would be dark and full of bats based on what I’ve seen on tv.
I have a fear of claustrofobia, not too dramatic but just enough to take my breath away for a few seconds and then I come back to reality. So stepping into the cave, my claustrophobic self was freaking out inside. Trying to play it cool I just kept taking deep breathes and telling myself “you’re good, be cool.”
I didn’t want to be “that girl” holding up the group because of her unrealistic fear of the mountain caving in and suddenly a group of 20 World Racers make headline news for being stuck in an ancient cave for days in Nepal.
We climbed up and slid down smooth rocks holding on to rope until we got to the center of the cave. It was HUGE. Like a big hole in the center of the earth. The top of the cave looked like it was never ending. There were a couple of pockets along the sides where you could climb up and into the small rooms of rock.
Our tour guide took over half of our group up into one of the side rooms that sat about 30 yards always from where me and five other squad mates decided to sit and rest.
If you didn’t have your head lamps on you literally couldn’t see anything. So as the group got further away from us the cave got darker and darker. Me, Jess, Beka, Kirsten and Matt sat quietly in the big black hole with one head lamp on.
As the group drifted off across the way we all decided to turn off all the lights and sit in the darkness for one-whole minute.
A minute may not seem that long, but it felt like the longest minute of me life. It was intense and scary. The darkness felt like I was sitting in a hole full of thick black air. I put my hand out in front of my face and couldn’t see it. The stillness was deep and heavy.
Sitting between five people, I felt so alone.
My heart was beating out of my chest. A rush of a familiar feeling came over me and I felt trapped. Like I couldn’t get out. I began to cry, as I thought to myself, “this is what shame feels like, this is what it does to us. It eats us alive and just surrounds us like a big black cloud.”
It’s powerful and lurks around in our life waiting to trap us in a dark hole of lies and fear.
I started crying for myself and all the people I know and love who are living in shame.
My sister
My dearest friends
My parents
My squad mates
I cried out to God in my soul to pierce the darkness with His light. I felt the fear and sadness and was so scared. When the minute was over one head lamp turned on and all of a sudden it was like a breath of fresh air. A sense of peace immediately took over the cave. One little burst of light filled a scary dark place with an abundance of comfort.
That’s Jesus.
I hate shame, I hate what it does to people who are so far deep in their shame they feel like they can’t get out so they normalize it.
We so easily take our past and present mistakes, overwhelmed by the fear of being known and showing weakness that we can’t dare talk about it or dare ask for help. “I’m fine, it’s fine” seems to be the normal and I want so desperately to break those words and thought process.
We run to worldly things to fill a void or to not feel at all because we hate the path we took in our life and don’t know how to break through the shame and re route our life map.
Past hurts and rejections make us so prone to satisfying or numbing the flesh to avoid more pain.
I can’t tell you how much living in community has changed the way I live my life over the last few years. Realizing that I’m not alone in literally any thing Im going through, makes me smile every time.
There is always a “me too” and it’s the most comforting thing to have when processing through life.
We all have been hurt, we all have made terrible mistakes, we all have gone down the wrong path and found our selves in a dark hole that’s so suffocating it takes the life right out of us.
I read this quote a couple of years ago and it spoke life right into my soul.
“Shame says that because I am flawed, I am unacceptable. Grace says that though I am flawed, I am cherished.”
Jesus is grace, He gives us grace for other people but most importantly He gives us grace for ourselves. He came down to earth and died on a cross to rise again three days later to show us grace. To tear through the cloth of shame that we wear around in desperate need of healing.
Since that day in the cave, I’ve personally broken through a couple of boxes of shame that I had been living in. The Lord broke through the darkness and shed His light on my shame so that I could be healed and walk in freedom.
Are there days I feel it lurking back into my life trying to define who I am? Yes, but I speak it out to my teammates and ask the Lord to speak His truth over me.
Friends, I pray healing over your life and pray that you can walk in freedom from whatever shame is breaking you down. Please pray for healing over myself, as I continue to process and heal from past wounds and the ever present evil- comparison. (But I’ll save that for another blog post).
Thank you for reading this oh so long post about my thoughts on shame. I’m so passionate about it cause I see how much it hurts and controls people, especially people I dearly love.
i encourage you to stop hiding in shame, find a church, find a group of people who you trust and start talking. Pierce the darkness you are living in with light. Let the Lord come invade that space and bring you rest and freedom.
You’re not alone,
J
