Reframe {The Sanctification Gap} - 1 Kings 15

I come into prayer with something pressing on my spirit- I need to reframe my expectations of leadership and ministry. I need to meet with Him about the way I idolize perfection and buy into the scarcity mindset of grace. It’s time to meet with Jesus and confess I need His help- it’s time open some windows and come out of hiding.

I am writing this on a Tuesday. I have called a meeting to order. The invitees are as follows: my emotions, my thoughts, my behaviors, my King, His Spirit, and my God. We meet around a table in the sanctification gap of my soul, that place between who I was and who I am becoming. 

Why are we here today?

To discuss what is really bothering me on a core level.

What is on the table? Forgiveness? Offense? Wounds?

The frame around that story is worn thin. No, today we are here to discuss freedom.

Freedom from what?

Freedom to live honestly in the sanctification gap. Freedom to receive blessing in my imperfection. To learn how to do ministry in a frame of grace.

I want the freedom to make mistakes in ministry and still be blessed by God in all He has called me to do in service of Him. I want to receive His blessing on my ministry even as I fail repeatedly in the process of learning how to manage His provision well. Working with people means a lot of unknowns, a lot of variables, and a lot of potential failure. Should I stop trying to learn how to serve others because I will make mistakes and could hurt someone? No- I should keep pressing forward. Should those who mishandled my story be called to another vocation because of the mistakes they made with me? No- they should keep pressing forward. Why, then, does a piece of my heart withhold grace? By refusing to give it, I am unable to receive it, and therein lies my problem today. I cannot move forward into church ministry without first looking back and reframing my story.

Look with me now, through this window. The underlying message of the past few weeks has been windows- what a strange theme. On vacation I found myself snapping pictures of windows without knowing why. This week in a training at the Freedom Academy I was given a black and white four-paned window that was printed on a handout. We were instructed to do some self-reflection that involved writing aspects of our negative self-perceptions and painful experiences into the four empty boxes of the window. I filled them in easily- generally I have quick access to some of the deep beliefs and deep desires in my soul, so this type of exercise poses no problem for me. One pane of that window asked:

“What is something negative that someone said to you and it stuck with you?”

I quickly wrote my answer, one which came easily and with vigor, hurtful words which had been spoken to me in a church ministry setting where I walked away with soul-wounds that would propel me straight into therapy. My answer to that question on the fourth square of my window diagram was based on words said to me in a church setting, by a church leader who was just trying to do ministry in the name of Jesus. Did that person mean well? Certainly! Did those words hurt me? More than I want to admit. But at this point in my life, if I don’t reframe this part of my story, I cannot give or receive grace for what is yet to come.

Here is why: I am taking small steps to enter into church ministry for myself now. I am in seminary, I am taking a life-coaching class through the Freedom Academy, I am the ambassador for the pastoral care team at Saddleback Yorba Linda. All of this means I am working out my sanctification each and every day, I am working with people and I am practicing self-awareness and learning new tools for leadership and ministry. I don’t think of myself as a leader, but it slowly dawns on me that this is what I am trying to become, despite myself. Which brings this revelation on a Tuesday morning: I now need to receive the grace that I still need to give. I need to reframe my past and so that I can shed some light on my place in the sanctification gap.

So in my journal today I call this Tuesday meeting to my first order of business: we are gathered here because a part of me is tempted to give up quietly and without a witness. That part of myself which believes that I must be perfect has determined that the task ahead of me is impossible. My core belief today is that I cannot ask for grace to learn through making mistakes- I must get everything right immediately, without being told twice and without hurting anyone. This is a problem because when I try to counsel people in real life at church or inside the classroom I have a massive fear of failure. I am ashamed of my learning curve when I am working with people. This is a core part of my belief system which needs transforming work in the Spirit, who is with me always. I have a scarcity mindset of grace.

Secondly, I have a critical voice inside that will not allow me to fail others in the ways that those in my past have failed me. I am deathly afraid to become a hypocrite, to see any commonality in myself with those who hurt me. I have declared to myself and to God that I will be different than them- it’s a desperate polarization seeded in the fear of becoming the very thing which I hold out as other, different and wrong. “I won’t be like them” is a judgement statement that keeps my deeper insecurities at bay. In the depths of my heart I pray with pride the thanks that I am not like them- I will do ministry so differently, so much better. So I am deeply concerned about doing ministry perfectly in order to remain above the shortcomings of others. I have drawn lines and boundaries about what is acceptable and what is not, and so I am quickly becoming hyper-vigilant to avoid repeating the wrongs that were done against me.

The frame of “I am different, I was right, they were wrong” keeps this window darkly shut and lets no light in to shine upon the ways I need the same grace as those I criticize. This standard of perfection is crushing me- it makes me fearful to take another step in learning to serve the church because I am afraid I might look down to see that really I am walking in the shoes of those I ran from. How can we reframe the past to shine light on new ways of thinking?

Those around the table with me lean into my journal and each has something to say. As we go around the room I hear the input from many sides- my emotions, my thoughts, and my behaviors weigh in first. Then I turn to the Trinity for an alternative- what are my other options here?

The Spirit holds up a frame of grace-

“In Christ there is permission to be blessed in imperfection.”

In the light of the window I look down at 1 Kings 15:14 and read-

¹⁴ Although the pagan shrines were not removed, Asa’s heart remained completely faithful to the Lord throughout his life.

This leader didn’t finish the job- he left pagan shrines among God’s chosen people. But the Word says that his heart remained steadfast to the Lord. Wait a minute, so you can have an imperfect ministry and yet your heart can be right before God? You can have definite shortcomings in your execution of service and leadership and yet be blessed by your faithfulness to Jesus? Yes, they do and yes, they are. Look around you! Can I frame this fact of life with grace?

The Spirit holds the frame higher, letting in more light- “I bless ministry and church leaders for the state of their heart, not for what they produce.”

I read more support for this in 1 Kings 15:4-

⁴ But for David’s sake, the Lord his God allowed his descendants to continue ruling, shining like a lamp, and he gave Abijam a son to rule after him in Jerusalem.

I sit back and look out this new window pane as I consider what it could mean. My inner voices have a lot to say. This verse comes after a long line of mistakes where leader after leader fails to be faithful to the God of Israel. But for the sake of the greater narrative, for Jesus sake, God continued to keep this leadership in power because it still brought glory to His name, despite the obvious shortcomings of those He permitted to rule. What frame does this put around my story and the relationships in my past?

The Spirit weighs in on my thoughts- God appoints ministry leaders for reasons bigger than themselves. In this way I have also appointed you.

And in a profound way, I reconcile my past to my future by walking in the shoes of those who needed my grace then as much as I myself will now need it. Case in point- On Sundays I have started to stand in the prayer area after service to offer words of hope and encouragement to those in the community who need it. Anyone is welcome to come to me for words of hope, help, or comfort. I take this seriously. I want to honor the feelings and stories of those who come to share a piece of their journey with me.

I have had very little experience so far- several practice sessions at the Freedom Academy and opportunities to articulate my limited listening and counseling skills in the cohort portion of my seminary class. But on Sunday when I stand next to the “prayer” sign after church with my lanyard and my team t-shirt on, this is the real thing. The stories are real life, the tears are unrehearsed and I am the one to whom these people are bringing their prayers. I find myself in the messy work of partnering with people in their painful stories, and so I am perfectly poised to make the same mistakes that were once made with me. How to handle the fragile needs of a human community of Jesus people? Such a hard question, one that needs a frame of grace.

I have noticed myself walking away from these Sunday mornings with negative self-talk. There is a fear inside that perhaps I might actually make the same mistakes as those from whom “I am different”. What if I say something that could be misunderstood, perhaps even hurtful? What if someday someone looks at me the same way I looked at those in the past who mishandled my story? So I judge myself harshly for not saying everything right. I condemn myself for my imperfect performance. I have no grace for myself. When it comes to learning to do counseling, coaching and public prayer for the church community, I find I get discouraged easily. These are people with real hurts, and who am I to speak words of leadership over them? I treat myself exactly as I treat those who let me down in the past- no grace, a frame of self-righteous judgement, critical and demonstrative. There is no room to learn, I must already know- know how to be different from those who failed before me!

And here is the deep lie I hold for myself (and others) as a result- your imperfection cannot be blessed or provided for, it must first be corrected and made right. But this is not Biblical. And here I confer with my companions around the table as the sun shines in through the window on this early Tuesday morning: I expected my church leaders to handle my story without making any mistakes. I could not put a frame of grace around the way those leaders fumbled with my needs. Yet here I am fumbling to do the very same role, uncertain and rather unqualified. 

Why am I unable to frame my mistakes with grace? Because I have not extended that same grace to frame those who came before me. To allow myself to learn the hard way about how to serve people in ministry means reframing the past. Grace is an equal-opportunist, and it is a frame that compliments every window, including those we would rather keep shut because they reveal deep beliefs which need Divine alternatives.

What is this deep belief that I cannot be like the people who hurt me in ministry? This determination to be different than them? Perhaps this is a form of pride and a roadblock to the work the Spirit wants to do within me now. What if I frame their mishandling of me with grace so that I can give myself grace, too? And so my companions and I agree as we confer around the table- it is time to reframe what happened in my story so that I can see my past through a window filled with light. Only then can I put off the burden of perfection that I carry with me into every act of service in my own attempt at church ministry. I cannot move forward until I first acknowledge that this reframing needs to take place when I look behind me at what came before this moment. Yes, framing the deeds of others with a lens of grace will set me free to receive it for myself.

When you begin to live life in the sanctification gap, that place between who we were and who we are becoming, the windows to our past tend to get reframed without our realizing. So the next time we look back, the story looks a bit different- not because we are forgetting, but because we are seeing in a different light. No longer through a glass darkly, but clear as the Son. What if I allowed God to bless me in my mistakes? What if I rejoiced that He blesses those who have made mistakes with me? Church ministry is much bigger than the people who feebly try to execute it. When the state of our heart becomes more important than the limitations of our hands, then we have reframed the “I am different” mindset in such a way that looking at the stories of others becomes more like looking into a mirror at oneself. Our job now is to raise a banner of love over that frame and allow the Light to shine upon us all, for God blesses His children in the midst of their mistakes, not in spite of them. Reframe the past with grace and He will reframe the present with love.

Why are we meeting here on this Tuesday morning?

To discuss what is really bothering me on a core level.

To revisit the story of your past?

The frame around that story is worn thin. No, today we are here to discuss freedom.

Freedom from what?

Freedom to live honestly in the sanctification gap. Freedom to receive blessing in my imperfection. To learn how to do ministry within a frame of grace.

Welcome, child. You are safe here. You are welcomed. You are loved.

Amen and amen.

Rebecca

~*~

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35 Years {My Gift}

God gave me a divine appointment yesterday that I will here unwrap: I can consider a position on the Pastoral Care Team for my church family.

As my readers know, later this year I will go to Seminary (I have been accepted!!) and also train as a life coach with the Freedom Center OC. And the bow on top of this gift is that I can reinstate the same title which I lost and grieved in a lengthy state of depression and self-doubt.

If you know my story, you know what this means for my faith.

Today it is my birthday- I am 35 years old. I am messy and imperfect and lacking in many ways, and so there is nothing I did to earn or deserve this chapter. This is grace.

I have never been more uncertain of the purpose of my future and yet absolutely certain that God is doing something new and something very specific with my journey.

I have been invited to consider joining the Pastoral Care Team at Saddleback Church Yorba Linda. For me personally, this is big. It means that God has returned everything back to me that I thought I had lost- my dignity, my calling as a pastor, my church family, my drive to learn, my desire to grow spiritually, teaching Sunday school, setting up the church campus in the early mornings, my titles, my labels, my badge, my walkie-talkie, even becoming friends with the children's ministry pastor and the teaching pastor. 

Little things, big things. He has returned to me all the things I grieved. Not identical to what they were, but perfect because they are His and not mine. And not because I earned them back, but because His love is lavished upon me through the power of His will.

I am learning to slowly trust this truth: There is nothing you can do to fall out of the will of God if you are pursuing Him with all your heart.

Yes, Jesus awakened this call in my heart to serve in pastoral care several years ago, and so THIS time I will trust Him with the outcome.

I do not credit those who have hurt me with paving this path, because they are the ones who almost squelched it and crushed me. That damage seems even now to be permanent. However, I credit them with being the passing messengers of God's greater calling on my life.

I have learned a few things along the way. Choice mistakes into which I have dug deep, found the roots, and begun to pull them up and out.

I will not push through with striving, but I will wait for His perfect timing.

This is a birthday of second chances.

~*~

It was the early hours of Sunday morning, Father's Day, when I woke before the rest of my family in order to arrive early at the church campus to set up the Children’s Ministry area.

There would be old cars and family pictures to celebrate the Dads in our community.

I prepared to go into my day with a heart open to receive from my good Father of grace. I would receive imperfectly, but I would apply my stubborn and persistent faith to the best that I was able. For grace is not opposed to effort but to earning.

The routine actions of each morning are the same, so I can move through my sleepy morning fog with machine-like precision. And after I am ready, each morning I eat two boiled eggs followed by one banana and one scoop of soy yogurt with cinnamon and a drizzle of honey. And one tall glass of water.

I always take my bible and my journal with me to the breakfast table, even if I only have a few minutes to spare. This is one way to keep myself emotionally healthy even when I do NOT want to practice soul care.

And this morning, I felt something nagging me from within- an unwanted emotion.

Grief? Depression?

Hurt.

Not again. Oh, old pain, I don’t have time for you today. Not now.

But I have learned to acknowledge these feelings, because they come from deep wounds which need attention. To ignore the truth is to force it to leak out in unwanted places that produce bitter and broken fruit.

So instead of avoiding the feeling stirring inside, I stared right at it and wrote only that which was really honest:

Dear Jesus- Today I acknowledge the hurt feelings that rise up inside against my will. I check in with my soul to see what continues to need care and healing. What are the parts of me that don’t have a voice, the places that are shut tight inside? This is where I need Your grace to infiltrate and flood in. Dear soul, why are you downcast? I spent this time remembering all my hurts. Jesus, I ask You to sit with me here and show me how to heal. I give myself permission to feel wounded, and I give You permission to enter the pain and extend grace and empathy to myself, through myself, because I need to be seen today. Amen.

And I wallowed in my sorrow for a bit, because you cannot put a time limit on the healing process.

But God lifted me up when it was time to release the grief back to Him, and I credit myself with responding willingly, even though I wanted to nurse the sad for a while longer.

He said, “It's Father's Day and I am your Good Father. Tomorrow is your birthday and I am the one who created you. My child, I want to bless you here. Make room for something new.”

So I finished my breakfast, pushed back the plate and read Numbers 22 before I left to serve my church in the wee hours of the day.

No time now for context, but here is what spoke to me as I read while I sipped my water-

Numbers 22:18-19 (NLT)

¹⁸ But Balaam responded to Balak’s messengers, “Even if Balak were to give me his palace filled with silver and gold, I would be powerless to do anything against the will of the Lord my God. ¹⁹ But stay here one more night, and I will see if the Lord has anything else to say to me.”

I am powerless to do anything against the will of the Lord my God?

Well, to feel powerless is to feel vulnerable and unsafe- any human would avoid a situation where he or she feels powerless.

To be powerless is to be a victim, exposed to the will of another.

And I have learned the hard way throughout the course of 35 years that being powerless before another fallen human being is dangerous and often produces pain.

But my Father is not fallen or broken. Dangerous? Yes.

But also, He is very good.

His will is perfect. Can we submit our power to the perfect will of a loving Father?

What if I am a victim of grace?

And so I decided to wait and see if the Lord had anything else to say to me.

The house was quiet and I was running late. Nothing.

I put away the Scripture and my journal and moved into the cold morning with tired hope. I pushed chairs, pulled boxes, unloaded crates and set up the classroom.

Does the Lord have anything else to say to me?

I am working up a sweat, setting up the classrooms before the children arrive.

Enter my campus pastor, who strikes up a conversation which leads to discussion about my recent acceptance into Talbot Seminary.

“What is your major?”

“Well, I want a Master of Divinity, which will take me a long time to achieve. But the emphasis I will be working on throughout the years to come is in Pastoral Care and Counseling."

“Really? Wow, well just this week we are starting to put together a Pastoral Care Team for our campus. Let me connect you with the leaders, they would love to meet you!”

And I find myself shaking hands with a couple that wants to meet for dinner in the weeks to come, so we can discuss my experience, my story, and my desire to serve the church through Pastoral Care.

They want to consider me for their pastoral care team.

I am being seen.

~*~

Friends, only if you have followed my story will you understand the meaning this has. Since I decided to pursue seminary graduate work, new doors have opened which I could never have anticipated.

This is grace, of which I am a victim.

Several weeks ago I was invited to join a cohort which will teach me the discipline of counselling women into freedom.

Now I find myself suddenly invited to meet a couple who is interested in adding me to a newly forming pastoral care team. 

Does this chapter sound familiar??

The timing of the gift is not lost on me today, my birthday.

When I am headed towards Jesus, no matter how far away I presently am from the prize, I am powerless to do anything against the will of my Father, because even my greatest mistakes and biggest regrets have not prevented these blessings from coming.

And so as I come to the breakfast table this morning to read the Word and write about my feelings, here is my journal entry on the 35^th year of my story:

Father- you have given me the gift of second chances. I have been adopted into Your famly and I have inherited Your eternal riches. I see that You are moving in to bless me, and so I position myself to receive. Jesus, I do not deserve Your grace but I am daily given a reason to keep moving towards it. Search my heart and soul, and let Your Spirit reveal whether I am striving to earn Your love OR making efforts to draw near to it. I look back at my first 35 years and I see many seeds planted- some among the choking weeds, shallow soil or painful exposure to harm; but others in good, rich soil which will daily grow into a harvest of good fruit in the 35 years yet to come. Thank you, God, for all that You have done to reach me. I am Yours and I will follow You. Your will be done. Amen.

I am going to Seminary. I am training to be a life coach. And now I will begin the pursuit of a position in Pastoral Care for my church family.

Seriously, unreal. Just how God has given me back every thing that was lost. Not in the way I wanted, and not without massive amounts of painful refinement which continue on to this very day. But all of it with a persuasive abundance of beloved grace.

I have never been more uncertain of the future and yet certain that God is doing something new.

Can train-wrecks be redeemed? Well, mine is in the process. One year ago I was wallowing in grief to such a degree that I believed I would not see the light of another day.

Today I belong to a new church family, I embrace a lost-and-found dream, and I still battle with anxiety but in the midst of ever-increasing grace.

Here I sit, in the early morning hours of my 35th year, choosing to remain powerless before the perfect will of my good and powerful Father.

I will bask in the gift of a second chance. I will learn to trust. I will allow myself to feel joy and I will surrender more pieces of my grief.

I have never been more uncertain of the purpose of my future and yet absolutely certain that God is doing something new and something very specific.

Shame has no place here.

Fear, I see you, but you cannot stay for long.

Depression, I know you are near, but my soul is in the care of Someone else.

I am a victim of Grace, and so I will surrender here and see what else He wants to say to me on this day, my birthday.

The path less traveled is certainly full of blessings, even among the rocky places of pain. If He can use my wounds for freedom, He can certainly use yours as well. Our setbacks really CAN become our superpowers.

Do not be afraid to become powerless before your Creator- His will is dangerous, but it is very good.

I will write this next year of my story as a victim of Grace.

Happy birthday to me :)

Rebecca

~*~

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The Shame Train- Genesis 3

I have joined a cohort called the Freedom Academy- I am enthusiastic as I look forward to the many hours I will spend absorbing the wisdom that Freedom Center OC has to offer. This class will begin in the Fall and run through December, so it is my hope that what I learn in this small cohort will pair quite nicely with my studies at school. It is my hope to use such tools to counsel other victims of what I choose here to call shame abuse.

In order to get a head start and lead the way of learning and knowing (as a Type One on the Enneagram will do) I determined to dive into any book they might suggest as a resource for personal growth and preparation.

To begin this summer season of “waiting” (as I am waiting on my official acceptance into Talbot Seminary, God willing, and then I will wait for school to actually start in the Fall), I picked up the book called The Wounded Heart by Dr. Dan B. Allender and I headed out on the journey with naive expectancy.

The impact of this read was unexpectedly powerful and I found myself stumbling along the tracks of unfamiliar territory. I had to jump back and allow the shame train to pass by before I could reorient myself and gather my wits to continue on.

On page 62 is where I first met the idea that shame is like pain- it indicates a problem which is not the suffering itself, but a deep wound which needs healing. Dr. Allender writes these words in summary of Genesis 3: 12 which roused my anger upon reception:

“Imagine telling the Lord God, ‘Don’t blame me. It’s not my fault; You made [insert name your enemy here]. If You had not created [him or her], then I would not be in this mess. It’s ultimately a failure of Your creation. You, God, and that [person] You made are the cause of [my] fall.”

Allender goes on to suggest that the enemy for all of us is not that person or people who have wronged and hurt us, but the enemy is sin and shame itself.

How dare it be suggested that the things of which I am a legitimate victim are actually a revelation of my own independent broken separation from God?! Excuse me? I am the victim in my story, not the sinner!

Anger! Shame!

Be still, oh my soul, and listen.

What is shame abuse? It is when we allow shame to dictate our present separation from God and therefore ensure our future status as a victim of such disparity. 

So I came here today to hash out why this page of the book elicited such anger from within me. I want to grapple with it until I see my God standing victorious in very center of the aftermath of all my emotions.

Here is how I will step back and reflect-

As I stood with my children beside a roaring train last week, it was with both delight and terror that we felt the air rushing by as the heavy metal clanked and the track bowed and hissed with the weight and heat of their rushing burden.

God spoke to me through my son as we stood waiting for some simple Saturday evening fun, to see a couple trains pass by us there at the Fullerton Train Station. We all noticed one particular homeless man because he stole our leftovers from where we had set them just two feet away. I told him to go ahead and do take it, and he continued to do so with a slurred sentence of thanks. We watched him hobble away on unsteady legs.

This homeless man we encountered while standing at the train station caused me to reflect on my own season of waiting. I am waiting for emotional healing and I am waiting for new direction.

I am waiting to understand who I am and what it is I am doing. I am waiting to settle into something definite. I am waiting until I can trust God with more.

And I think now of how the many feelings which rise up during this season in my life can become deadly to the soul when I don’t know how to approach them. This waiting can become a platform for transportation or numbing, depending upon my approach.

My initial thought upon seeing this drunken homeless man stealing his dinner was to simply judge- “he made very foolish choices and so he has ruined himself. His approach to life was bad.”

But the eyes of an innocent child do not see in black and white, which is why we are to come to our Father like little children in shades of gray.

“Mommy, why does that man do drugs?” This was my nine year old son.

What is this man’s story, really? Is his so different from my own? We both know shame, that worldwide epidemic of human brokenness and separation from God. We both long for our next spiritual meal while avoiding the dangers of incoming emotion.

“Well, his feelings are very sad because he has a hard life, and he doesn’t want to feel the hurt anymore. So he does drugs to turn off his feelings. He wants to hide from his sadness.” This was the best I could do for a quick answer to a loaded question.

“Is this because of sins, mommy?”

“Yes, son. This is because of sins. And it makes God very sad when we hide from our feelings, because then He cannot help us.”

Oh, but shame is an exception, if I am honest. I allow shame to enter in because it seems well-deserved and righteous. Shame points fingers and brings momentary retribution to the wounded soul.

After all, I’m a victim, so I have a right to feel shame or any other hurt emotion if I choose to!

…but to hide in shame is to become separated from the only One who can heal. This is the sin of shame which hurts nobody but ourselves.

“The capacity to feel shame does not lead to change or a return to the Creator. It leads to the opposite attempt to hide behind a bush. The natural response of an autonomous (independent and self-reliant) heart is to hide behind fig leaves or any convenient bush.” –Dr. Allender

Don’t we all live in this space on some level within? Who hasn’t felt shame and wanted to run and hide from God and perhaps also the whole entire world? Those who cannot recall experiencing such a time are the most numb of all.

To be human is to feel ashamed. To be human is to be divine. So we must bravely enter the presence of God with both parts of our selves in order to be fully known and fully loved. As Allender eloquently writes,

"Man is an amalgamation of dignity and depravity, 

a glorious ruin."

When shame has had its way with us, we are left numb and our soul goes to sleep because it has been cut off from the lifesource of our true identity and divinity.

The aftermath of shame is a dizzying combination of intense downward pressure and helpless weakness.

We are all victims of shame abuse.

So each of us must know that Christ is there beside us offering a hand and asking that wonderful question with a loud voice and inquiring eyes as He checks his pocket-watch in earnest,

“Well, ya comin’?”

What is important is not where He is going, it’s deciding to get on. 

Board the shame train? 

Yes, because otherwise we will be stuck at the station for the rest of our lives, numbing ourselves to the pain with a bottle in a brown paper sack.

We can numb out our entire existence with cycles of living that make us “happy” because they are familiar, or we can choose to board one of those scary trains of powerful emotion and trust that He will help us navigate the journey.

In working through The Wounded Heart this week, I see an error in some of my reasoning about the past- I always believed that shame was its own entity, a thing to be felt helplessly or turned into a launching pad for either retaliation or personal victory.

I did not know it could be an indicator that I am in fact hiding from the One I thought I was actively pursuing.

I owe most of my story to shame- without it, I would never have had the momentum to step out and keep writing. Because what does not kill us makes us stronger- right??

…yet what does not kill us can also cause us to hide deeper from the truth, pushing it away and covering our wounds with numbing techniques that are familiar and well-worn, like a drunken homeless man beside dangerous tracks of busy human productivity.

So now I go into my week with a new thought- the feeling of shame is not a signal that someone committed a wrong, it is a sign that we are hiding from God. Let not these two be confused, as much as the enemy would like us to believe that shame begins and ends with offense and must be either drowned in or ignored.

In Genesis is the first story of shame, and it tells so much about the human condition-

Genesis 3:9-12 (NLT)

⁹ Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”

¹¹ “Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?”

¹² The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.”

Here in the place of shame is where God’s presence is most tangible to the sinner- the air is thick with it.

Imagine yourself hiding from God behind a bush every time that you feel shame- actually, that is what you are in fact doing. This is what I have done countless times, too many to count. I have said many MANY times: ‘Don’t blame me. It’s not my fault; You made [this enemy of mine]. If You had not created [him or her], then I would not be in this mess. It’s ultimately a failure of Your creation. You, God, and that [person] You made are the cause of [my] fall.”

Sometimes, this very enemy is even my own self. For example, the school play which I forgot to attend because I wrote down the wrong date, so that no loved one was in the audience to cheer for him when my son was on stage.

Here comes the shame train. A classic case of shame abuse in my soul.

I hide from You, God, because I don't want You to see that I am broken and imperfect. I am ashamed only because I am separated from You, and I am separated from You only because I have chosen to hide.

Ah, shame, how I loathe you. This relationship must end, and so I board you cautiously and see where you take me from here, listening carefully to the words of the Conductor so I know exactly when to get off.

I am going to leave this platform of unbroken cycles of brokenness, and the tracks will lead me to a place where I can present my whole entire wounded self before God in open humility.

Emotions can become a freight train of power and momentum when we do not have proper perspective. And perhaps a runaway train might be a better description of what shame can feel like within the soul, as well as the damage that shame can do to the human spirit when it is either ignored or indulged.

Shame is death, which is why it was the original gateway in Genesis 3 for brokenness to enter our once-perfect world. So when we see the first signal which tells us that the freight train of shame is headed our way, the first instinct is to hide. As shame begets fear of what God might do if He saw who we really are, it arouses our impulse to barricade ourselves from the onslaught of emotion which appears from a distance to be a massive threat of unknown proportions.

“It’s coming, it’s coming! Look, Mama! There it is!”

We remember this loud train which careens down the tracks, as it has passed by many times before, and we know the routine because we are creatures of broken habits and fallen instincts. We live here at the station, never getting on to travel these tracks of big emotion because we are too busy numbing ourselves to how we truly feel.

We are the homeless vagabonds who wander around the train station begging for handouts and keeping a safe distance from the tracks. We don’t want to risk exposure to any potential futher injury, and we would never dream of getting on the train should it pull up to a groaning, slowing stop beside us. Not even the invitation of a friendly conductor could sway our determination to remain benched, small and ashamed. For perpetual brokenness is easy to live with when it is very familiar.

No, we continue to sit on the station bench, passively observing freight trains coming and going, keeping a safe margin between ourselves and the familiar locomotives which could either kill us or deliver us from this place where we are stuck. We opt instead for the bottle that sits in a paper sack beside us, the one that contains victimization, offense, accusation and a long list of wrongs done to us and through us.

We emotional vagabonds don’t ask for much, other than handouts that will keep us alive in order to continue the numbing process. There is a tiny part of us that knows we are waiting for something, but we have forgotten what that might be. Shame keeps us hidden from others, from ourselves, and most importantly, from God.

Most of us don’t even realize the effects of shame in our lives because we have lived so long with it that we have become accustomed and accepted it as quite normal. And to interrupt the homogeneous state of a life lived in shame is to upset the normalcy of the comfortably familiar.

Who wants a God that invites us to take up a cross and learn to die well? Only those who are ready to stop hiding and present their whole shameful self to the ministrations of the King.

And we will go to great lengths to maintain the homogeneous state of shame in which we dwell. And sometimes the reality of our pain takes momentous effort to cover up. Continues Dr. Allender: “Shame is a dreaded, deep-seated, long-held terror come true: what we have fear has actually come about. We’ve been found out.”

“Look, look, mommy! Here it comes!”

Shame steals our next meal while we are gazing into the distance, anticipating the next onslaught of emotion headed our way.

And this shame does not always have to be a giant monstrosity of power and speed, although it often is that. It can also be an inviting passenger train which whistles pleasantly and slows down to accommodate our weary burdens which we carry.

“Well, ya comin’?”

Remember, friends, as we learn this together: shame is not actually a sign that you or someone else has done something wrong. Shame is a sign that you are hiding from God.

The first time this was suggested to me I became angry. It boiled up and I sat with it for quite some time, quietly observing what this anger could mean.

I found that at the root of every offense, both mine and others, is a simple choice: hide from God or stand brokenly before Him.

I think the fires of refinement are hottest for those who do not understand what shame really means, which is why my heart has burned within me for so very long.

And so I come before my God today, peeking out from behind my hiding place, and I say this to Him:

“There is something You want me to understand, and I am closer than ever to perceiving it. There is something here about shame and enemies. Just as in Genesis, my shame is a sign that I am hiding from You. My shame points directly back to the only real enemies of my past- not the people that have hurt me, not the people I have hurt, but sin itself and the way it separates me from You. Shame is a force of power which has found access to me through the former intimate relationships with people to whom I was submissive and vulnerable- sin used them to gain easy access to my wounded soul. When I feel shame in thinking about that, it is not actually because of what has been done to me or what I have done in the past, but my shame is a sign that I am hiding from You. If I stood in Your presence, there would be no shame because it falls away in the light of Your grace. Teach me, Jesus, as you did with the Apostle Paul for the three years following his conversion.”

We need to put down the bottle that keeps us numb, board that train of runaway emotions and ride it to the next stop, where Jesus will meet us with a new identity in Him which no amount of human error can ever take from us.

Get up off that worn out bench beside the tracks where you watched the shame train come around again and again- board it with Him and leave your numbing agents behind.

Look, a train is pulling in even now, you can feel it shaking the ground beneath your feet…

Well, friend, are you coming?

 All Aboard!

Rebecca

~*~

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