Remnants of Shame Still Cling to Us—But They are Losing Their Grip

The number one question I am asked about at my women’s events has to do with shame–that pervasive sense of non-good-enough-ness that keeps us always feeling on the “out”—not safe, not accepted, not wanted, not … loved.

Rich, poor; urban, rural; formal education, no formal education—many Christian women struggle with feeling not-good-enough–at work, in the home, with their extended families, in the quietness of their own hearts. They feel like they don’t fit in. There is no safe place for them. If they were ever vulnerable enough to let someone see their “real selves,” women who struggle with shame feel that they would be evaluated and judged with a resounding: Not. Good. Enough.

It is because this struggle is so pervasive among Christian women that we have a chapter on Shame in the “Conflicts Within” section of our book, Peacemaking Women. It is also why I was so happy to pray for (and financially support) CCEF for years as Dr. Ed Welch worked on his manuscript on this very topic: Shame Interrupted: How God Lifts the Pain of Worthlessness and Rejection.

This is a wonderful book.

“Shame Interrupted” captures the heart of a shame-based person so fluently that it is easy to forget that its author is a professional counselor and theologian. He writes more like a friend and fellow sufferer. I think that is why I have always been so profoundly helped by his books—I never feel like he is talking down to me. (“Here is this great wisdom that I know that you don’t. Receive it. Learn it. Be like me.”) No. Whether the topic is depression, addiction, brain disorders, or fear, Dr. Welch writes with humility, humanness, and a stalwart confidence in the reality of God’s saving, adopting, sanctifying, and one day glorifying, grace.

If you or someone you know struggles with often feeling “not-good-enough”, I hope you will order a copy today. To tempt you to do so, I will leave you with a few of my (random!) notes from my first reading of this book back in 2012 when I endorsed it.

(These are just rough notes—please attribute any strange or confusing language to me and any pearls of wisdom to Dr. Welch.)

Remember! You are not alone.

And you are most definitely, definitely loved—

Your friend,
Tara B.

THE LANGUAGE OF SHAME

I am apparently unworthy of love. Real love.
Even the people who claim to love me kick me out. Call me a nuisance.
Can’t stand to be around me because there is something so fundamentally flawed about me—
That I am unacceptable. Bad.

Not because of what I do or say.
(Sin? Guilt? For that I know I can be forgiven! But what about this ill-defined gray blob of …
just me being me and my “just me” being worthy only of rejection?)

Forgiveness speaks to guilt. Great!
But shame is unmoved by forgiveness.

Like some sort of B-movie horror-show antagonist monster—
People turn away from me and keep me at arms-length.
I am hideous. Scary. Annoying. Overwhelming.

Too Much Tara = Too Much Badness

Interestingly, a lot of the people who judge me most harshly have never even gotten to know me
Never spent one minute with my children and me
Yet they point a finger and say, “Bad Mom!”

Still. When line after line of my weaknesses and failures is listed out …
Page after page …
Not metaphorically, but actually written down, by hand or typed up, on paper …

As a child (“See, dear, that’s why you can’t live with me any more—you’re too difficult. Get out!“)
A pre-conversion teenager living with friends for a few weeks (“We thought we could help/fix you but you’re too much of a mess. (Read list of Tara Badness). You’re bringing down our whole family. GET OUT!”)
A short-term missions team member (“See, Tara, here is this actual list—two pages, double-sided—of all of your badness and things you need to FIX. Oh. And here is Matthew 18 too so you can see that this is exactly how JESUS says we are to treat one another.” And the well-meaning baby Christian teenager says, “Huh?! This is how Jesus says we are to treat one another?”)
A group of friends in high school explaining why I wasn’t invited to the “cool kids” party (“We love you, Tara, but you’re just too annoying. If you could stop doing THIS and start doing THAT, then we could maybe bear to be around you.”)
The dorm room buddy who WANTED to live with me right up until the minute she DIDN’T want to live with me (because I was too, well, ME). One day, she read me an actual list of Tara’s annoyances and the next day she moved out. Yup. That’s friendship for ya!
OK. One list was verbal—flung out of a car door window when my best friend in college, without warning, said, “You are just TOO HARD TO BE AROUND, Tara. I love you. But I never want to have any contact from you ever again.” My. Best. Friend. (Or so I thought.) No warning. No Spidey-Sense-Tingling-I’ve-Upset-Someone foreboding of conflict brewing. Just a list. A pronouncement. Tara = Bad. Then complete radio silence. (Well, for 25 years—and then, YAY! YAY! YAY! We were reconciled! One of my most blessed moments in all of life.)

(As an aside, I cannot tell you how tired this makes me to this of all of this. But thankfully, at least, my husband has never made such a list. Not yet and I know not ever, because that’s the kind of man he is. I bet a lot of people wish they could say that about their spouse.)

Still. Shame and rejection sure make it hard to risk, to be vulnerable, and to love. Every time I’m suckerpunched, my instinct is to stay permanently in a defensive crouch, better prepared for the next blow. But that’s not living! And that’s not loving! So I grieve and wail and mourn and try again.

But when my rejection begins to bleed out onto people I love and suddenly THEY are rejected too? Oh man. A truly terrifying death knell that has slowly rung deep in my soul for my entire sentient life starts to grow louder and stronger … this the one dark thought tries to claw itself to the surface of my consciousness and rule my life:

Tara? The lives of the people around you would be better off without you.
Because that’s how bad you really are.

OK. So now we’re in it. In the battle. A lie, clearly from the pit of Hell, fed by the confusions and delusions of my Old Man, nursed by the world and by Christians acting like the world …

To that horrible, deceiving lie that the people I love would be better off without me?
I whisper back with enough strength to win the day: There is a way to be cleansed from shame.

God identifies shame. God experienced shame.
I am not alone.

Through Jesus, there is a way out of shame.
The unclean become clean.
The clean become holy.
The naked are clothed in royal garments.
The outcasts are accepted as children of the honored King.

Contempt says: ‘Stay away from me. I will not even deign to look you in the eye more or less speak directly to you. You are too far gone. Too bad. Too scary. Too annoying. Too unworthy.’

Jesus says: ‘Come to me all ye who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’

I pray: “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” (He is! He does!) And then he goes even further! He not only saves us and cleanses us, he adopts us as his beloved: ‘See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.’ (1 John 3:1)

The remnants of shame still cling to us, but they are losing their grip.
Adoption is the answer for shame.

People ignore, attack, and discard us. We are the targets of anger, which is almost always demeaning. We are discouraged when people don’t care about us or remember us—but we survive. Why? How? Because we know …

We are chosen. Wanted. Loved.
We are growing.
And one day, there will be no more shame.

Maranatha! Come quickly Lord Jesus. Amen.