“Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”
Genesis 2:25 NIV
Embarrassed.
Steam seemed to be rising off my neck, as my face turned red. Sweat began to form on my temples. I could feel the drip of salty liquid slowly slide down my cheek. The words that would dribble out of my mouth were almost choked out as my throat felt like it was closing. The thought I chased was “is it okay to lie in church?”
The lie I told that day was prompted not as a question of my own behavior but on the behaviors of someone else. In fact, that someone else happened to be the person I was married to.
This feeling I was caught in was shame.
The action was a cover for the life of lies I was allowing to be lived in my home. As if I had become a five year old child backed into a corner staring down the face of choosing to expose the mess of inside my life or to continue to lie, I lied.
The truth, in my mind, was an indictment on me as a minister. Yes, as a minister I lied. The lie was told in order to keep the carefully placed facade situated so no one saw the truth. To expose the truth would come at a cost I was unwilling to pay. The cost of in my mind was my position in ministry, the influence I had, and what I believed at the time would even be my calling. The simple sin of sustaining a false story seems a small price to pay to keep what I valued. Shame shaped my identity. Shame became my master.
Shame is a cover. Much like Adam and Eve knit together leaves to hide their naked, vulnerable state from the Lord, shame shell shocks us into covering ourselves and those around us. Some cover is a protection mechanism for our own sins. Other covers are not simply for self protection, but who we are covering for. Shame has a powerful way of backing us into corners to create covers for others.
Eden was perfect. In the longing thought of ample, beautiful scenery of greens, reds, blues, and colors our eye has never even imagined the perfection of man and woman. Something we cannot even begin to fathom. Their perfection was wrapped in one word: naked. In full disclosure, they were naked and felt no shame.
Shame entered the earth on the slithery back of the serpent with a simple question: “did God really say?” For Adam and his wife, they owned their own shame of coming short of God’s intended obedience of their lives. But what if you truly never took the bite? What if you cover your nakedness not out of your sins, but the sins of someone else?
Shame has a power to back us into places to do just that. Poorly crafted lies told to us, we spread like a blanket of protection for our own identity even when the sins are not ours to own. Shame has a whispering voice that narrates life telling you that their sin is your shame.
So how do you crawl out from under the covers of someone else’s shame?
1) Tell the truth, the whole truth, so help you God.
And the truth will set you free. Please read this with caution. This is not me condoning you to put someone else on blast all over your socials. This is me saying “stop lying”.
As I sat my kids down to explain why I was divorcing their mom, I continued to lie. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t. It was not that passion had faded in the relationship or we just could not get along, as I tried to soften the blow to my three kids. The truth was there was infidelity in the marriage and a lot of it. In that moment, choosing to lie kept the cover and kept the cycle of shame. Note, telling the truth to anyone does not have to include every juicy detail, but it does require you to quit covering for someone else’s sin.
The truth is a powerful weapon in overcoming shame. The truth causes you to take ownership of what is yours, but also forces you to not take on what is not true of your life. This type of shame is like a backpack full of bricks that someone else has had permission to keep stacking in there. Shame tells you your responsible to keep carrying them, even when those heavy sins are not your own.
Outlined in the book of Joshua is moment where the children of Israel finally receive their promise. After 40 years of wandering, they reach where God was taking them. At a place called Gilgal, the Bible tells us the Lord rolled the shame of Egypt away.
For 40 years, Israel walked with the label of an Egyptian slave. When in truth, they were free all along.
2) Leave it where it lies
Telling the truth once will not be enough. Like the slithering liar that slid into the story of the garden, the temptation to lie will come back. Those same embarrassed emotions will tempt you to tell the old well rehearsed story. You will be tempted to cover for them as protection for yourself and for them. You will lie to cover embarrassment. You lie in order to protect someone else’s image. You lie to protect your own.
Who you need tell the truth to is not the whole world, but yourself. Shame will reintroduce a familiar story with familiar characters. It will attempt to hold you hostage in the lies you have been telling and repeated to yourself.
Once you break the cycle of lies, covers, stretched truths, you leave them where they lie. Drop the heavy bag of bricks. Leave it where it lies. Once you shed the shame don’t pick it back up. It was never yours to carry in the first place.
3) Get comfortable being naked.
In the classic 90’s sitcom Friends, the six New York City friends have an unsuspecting and unusual neighbor, “ugly naked guy”. While ugly naked guy never makes an on-screen appearance, one thing is for certain, he is comfortable in his birthday suit.
Shame becomes an identity cloak, something we cover our vulnerabilities with. While I am not advocating sitting in the buff with the blinds open, there is a level of being comfortable in your own skin that comes with shedding shame. When you shed the shame, you become vulnerable, which means allowing people to see you, all of you. Shame has been a hiding mechanism. Truth is big reveal of who you are. It is a risk of letting people see the authentic version of yourself that has been hiding.
Adam and Eve walked in the garden “naked and unashamed”, fully seen by each other and God. While we can cover our shame from others, it is impossible to hide from God. To truly walk out from the cover of someone else’s shame, you have to get comfortable being seen, completely seen. You have to get comfortable being emotionally naked.
This is a challenge. It is one we find most difficult. It is easier to blame and keep the shame then be seen. As a good friend has often reminded me, when people see the real you, they tend to like you more. When you face shame, hiding has become a habit. It will take time creating a new habit of allowing people to see you as you are, hurts, scars, wounds, warts and all. The fascinating thing is when we expect people to see the worst, they often see the best of us. They like us more.
Don’t play the blame game
Shedding shame is never about being right, it is about being free. It is not about winning friends to your side. It is not about pursuing sympathy or empathy. It is plain and simple about leaving a weight behind that has felt like toting a dead body on your back everywhere you have gone. Shedding shame is about freedom from what has bound you and your identity. Shedding shame is about living in the liberty of the truth. Shedding shame is leaving what is dead right where it lays and walking forward.
Live in the truth. Live in the present. Leave behind the shame someone else dressed you in.
~Jeff
