Shame debilitates, disempowers, disables, depresses, deflates. It says you’re not good enough and never will be. It says because of the things you have done or the things you have believed, or the things you have not done, you will never be good enough for anyone, for any role, or any purpose. Shame will render you useless. It will suck all life from you, and leave you as a cold, empty shell. The shame of feelings, shame of letting others down, shame of getting it wrong, the shame of accidentally saying something without thinking until after the words are out of your mouth. The shame of the thoughts that sometimes enter your mind – do they dictate to you that that is who you are – that because you thought those things, then you must be such and such? “If I wasn’t such and such, then I wouldn’t think those things?” Shame that someone might actually hear your thoughts and decide what kind of person you are, decide your value, your worth, judge you, mock you, ridicule you, look down on you?
All these elements of shame are related to what you think of yourself and how you think others see you. Where in this list is there anything of what God believes in you and who he says you are?
It’s all about focus. When you focus on shame, you will be overcome by it and all its aspects – you will be disabled and disempowered.
When you focus on what God says about you, you will become that strong warrior who overcomes – a force to be reckoned with. You will stand on top of that black hill of shame with a finely honed spear in your hand, watching it’s ugliness writhe beneath you, trapped by its own festering darkness. Shame is now unable to penetrate above and seer your heart because you have pierced it with the word of God and sealed its power. After some time, as it struggles to escape, the writhing mass slowly subdues and solidifies – it’s imprint fossilized beneath your feet.
As more time passes, the mass morphs into malleable form, undulating beneath you. The pitches and dips of the terrain mark the finality of where the writhing form had surrendered to it’s passing. The ridges and lines left behind, remind you of the attempts it made to trap and reel you in – it’s veins standing out in it’s striving to force it’s way back into your heart.
But it could not overcome you, the warrior. Beauty has grown around you and beneath you, smothering even the memory of shame. The hardness of the shame breaks apart and crumbles into fertile soil. Ha – the very thing that tried to take you down could not overcome you – it transformed under the power of the word of God, to provide beauty where there was no beauty, abundance where there was desolation.
You stood firm in that one place, on that one word from God, until the shame capitulated and became what you needed it to be. Warrior, place a stone of remembrance on the place where your feet now stand. Stand watch for your next assignment. Be vigilant, listen, and when God speaks, pick up that spear and run. Run to the one who is surrounded by manacles of shame. Stand with her, with your spear. Pick up her spear and put it in her hand. Teach her to dominate that coward of shame with the word of God. Teach her that it will subdue, that it will be forced under her feet. Teach her to stand fiercely on top of it. Then stand with her until that decrepit oppression is defeated. Teach her the power of the spear in her hand – the word of God that brings healing, deliverance, and freedom. Teach her to see the beauty formed around and beneath her. Teach her to embrace the contentedness of her deliverer’s touch, the peace that reaches her heart and soul – the solidarity of a new friendship formed.
Teacher her to breathe – slowly, deeply.
Then teach her to run.