Week 5 | Sit: From Shame to Solitude

Most often, we struggle with shame because of hurts and wounds we’ve experienced. As children, we are wounded and conclude that “something must be wrong with us.” Our wounds become interpreted as our identity: I am not enough. I am not lovable. We also wound others. If we do not move toward repair with God and others, we may respond out of an unhealthy shame rather than a holy guilt. 

As we consider ways that we seek to be celebrated by others, it leads us to consider what wounds we are trying to cover up. Addressing wounds and false beliefs paves the way for living in our belovedness. We are invited to look into our pain, not away from it. In Falling Upward, Richard Rohr comments that “we cannot heal what we do not acknowledge.” And, as is often attributed to Carl Jung, “What we resist persists.”

Healing and resting in our belovedness with Christ comes as we connect the dots between our past wounds, hurt, and neglect to our current struggles with shame.

Again, shame tells us that we don’t measure up and don’t belong. These messages are unbearable, and we instinctively try to cover them up. We see this first in the the temptations in the Garden of Eden. Initially, Adam and Eve “were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25). After they sinned against God, “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked” (Genesis 3:7). Rather than go to God with the wound they had inflicted upon themselves, they hid, covered, blamed, and lied about what happened. Shame entered the equation.

Whether it is our sin or sin inflicted upon us, the methods of covering shame are the same. Can you see ways that you try to deal with your shame in order to counteract the messages that you don’t belong or are not worthy of love? Do you see ways that you try to distance yourself from those feelings of shame?

Do you tend to look outward to find a covering for shame, or do you turn inward? As we become aware, rather than feeling shame about our shame, we can let the awareness turn us toward Him – stepping into His gaze. In the gaze of God, we find repair because of forgiveness offered in grace. A key feature of the Lord’s Prayer is, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.” This covers both elements of how we may experience shame.

As we sit in His gaze rather than wallowing in shame, Psalm 34:5 reminds us: “Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.” This is the truth as we receive our belovedness – we are able to release shame, and our faces reflect the glory of the One who gazes upon us. 

In Romans 5:1-5, the Apostle Paul describes the dynamic of being in Christ by referring to shame, as well as to the deep, expansive love of God:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

While the world around us seems to live according to an economy of shame, God’s kingdom runs on hope, which never puts shame on us. His love has been poured into our hearts. As we become aware of the ways we seek for others to fill our hearts, we can rest from all those efforts. Eugene Peterson translates the last part of Romans 5:1-5 like this: “We can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!”

Today, simply sit in the awareness that shame is not something God puts on you. He covers shame and repairs through forgiveness. As you notice any way that you seek being the beloved from others, gently let it go and hear the Father say: You are my beloved. Rest for a few minutes. As thoughts come which might distract you from His presence and love, simply return to hear His voice of love.

Prayer: Father, thank You for Your grace which covers my shame. Thank You for forgiveness which heals hurts and opens me to Your grace again and again. Amen.