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I was in the 7th grade when I first experienced the power of shame.
I had just finished singing a solo one Sunday morning when a family member approached to tell me my performance was less than perfect. I remember feeling the weight of their projected embarrassment and the rush of blood to my face. An instantaneous sense of self-contempt set in. I wanted to hide…and I did.
For the next 5 years I refused to use my singing voice in any public setting.
I made an internal agreement. I would never allow my gift and therefore my heart to be subject to public consumption ever again. Often, in the wake of shame there is something of a gravitational force that compels us to go to war-to pick a side in the battle between isolation and community.
Dr. Curt Thompson’s book, The Soul of Shame, has important insight on this topic: “Shame is a primary means to prevent us from using gifts we have been given. And those gifts enable us to flourish as a light-bearing community of Jesus followers who work to create space for others who wish to join it to do so. Shame, therefore, is not simply an unfortunate, random, emotional event that came with us out of the primordial evolutionary soup. It is both a source and result of evil’s active assault on God’s creation, and a way for evil to try to hold out until the new heaven and earth appear at the consummation of history.”
Shame is "a source and result of evil's active assault on God's creation."
YOU and I are a part of God’s creation, “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)
What has shame’s evil assault sounded like in your heart and mind?
Here are 4 reflection questions to ask in the silence of your own heart:
1. Has there been an experience in my distant or recent past that has introduced shame to my heart? Is it hindering the flow of my gifts in this season?
2. In the wake of this wounding, do I find myself leaning towards isolation or safe community?
3. What do I need in order to come out of hiding and into the light of being known so my heart can be properly held in this moment of my story?
4. Do I need to empty the contents of my heart before God as it pertains to the area of shame?
In the midst of our shame it's easy to default to avoidance and withdrawal. We see this pattern surface in humanity’s earliest moments: “We also see that the serpent has no trouble talking about God rather than inviting the woman to have a conversation with God. This is one of shame’s most important means of creating the isolation that supports its affective gravitas. At this point the woman can begin to consider God in her own mind, by herself. She is given the opportunity to decide independently who God is and what he thinks and feels in response to her. She begins the process of analyzing God—of judging him from a distance, rather than interacting with him. ” ā€• Dr. Curt Thompson - The Soul of Shame.
Will we believe the story shame tells us about who we are?
Will we have a conversation with the enemy of our souls instead of having a conversation with the One who fearfully and wonderfully formed us? Will we have the courage to seek repair through the conduit of life with God and safe people?
Shame was never meant to have the last word because God is still in the work of redeeming all we think cannot be redeemed-from everyday…to eternity.
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