Shame Does Not Have the Final Word

Have you ever noticed how shame can suck the joy out of life?

It has a way of casting a shadow over every aspect of our lives. It even has the power to distort our perceptions of ourselves. It’s that lingering feeling of unworthiness which is magnified by our insecurities. Shame is the little devil that sits on your shoulder constantly whispering in your ear all the reasons you are not good enough.
Not smart enough.
Not beautiful enough.
Not _________­­­­­­_­­­­­__________[fill in your own blank].

The Bible begins with the story of Adam and Eve and tells how they disobeyed God by eating fruit from a tree they weren’t supposed to eat from. When God came looking for them they hid among the trees. When asked by God where he was, Adam answered, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. “(Gen. 3v10) Their secret was exposed and shame flooded over them. They became aware of their nakedness. In their panic they hid and made clothes out of leaves to cover “their nakedness”. In the Bible nakedness and shame are synonymous.

They tried to…
erase their mistake,
reverse their failure,
undo their sin,
hide their regret.

They didn’t want God to see them as they now saw themselves. That is what shame does to us. It makes us mask over our failures and cover up the things for which we think others will judge us. By doing so we end up living with layers of contradictions just to cover our shame. We can hide our shame from others, but we can never hide it from ourselves. Instead it fuels the fear that we will not be accepted and loved just as we are. So we pretend. We wear masks to conceal from others the things we are ashamed of. We create personas with characteristics that are opposite of the things qualities we are most ashamed of. This is after all, what social media is all about. Our profiles are manufactured realities of the person we want the world to think we are. I do it too.  I have never posted a picture of times when I was sad, heartbroken, annoyed, upset, in the middle of an argument, or of the unkind things I’ve said. We just don’t do that. Because if we did people might not like us. We pretend like our marriages are perfect, our salaries are large, our children are prefect and our life is without imperfection.  We do this to cover our shame.