The subject of shame has been on my mind for a couple of days now, and I wanted to write about it earlier but I guess laziness interfered. We were not made to feel ashamed. I know it's kind of like, okay so what who cares, but when I really think about it, that's huge. Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed, innocent before God and in direct fellowship with Him. Once they sinned they realized they were naked, they hid from God because they were ashamed. I've come to realize that it's not while I'm sinning that I feel bad even though I know it's wrong, but it's the after effects that hit me in the gut. That feeling of unbearable shame and guilt and wanting to hide because you feel so dirty and unworthy of Christ...we've all felt it. It's a horrible feeling--like there's this pressure on your heart you feel like crying because you've failed God, you've failed your family, you've failed yourself. It's so easy to be stuck in your shame, wallowing in it and not really knowing what to do, and punishing yourself in the wrong ways.
I remember in high school when I was addicted to korean dramas. It seems so dumb, pshh addicted to dramas. Maybe it's not as bad as being addicted to drugs or alcohol or sex, but watching these soap operas for hours and hours at a time was a kind of escape from reality, and I neglected my family, my school work, my faith. A lot of these late nights occurred Saturday night, and Sunday morning for church I would be so tired, and I felt so incredibly guilty. I felt so unclean, like I was wasting my time and life, and my addiction was a secret I kept to myself. Even if I were to reveal it to peers or an adult, it was always treated as no big deal. "Oh, TV? That's not that bad." But this shame of watching so much and then telling white lies to my parents was eating me up inside, and I punished myself with guilt and by not participating in communion because I felt so bad. My shame prevented me from coming to God, repenting, and laying it all down before Him. Sure, I would whisper a prayer promising never to do it again, but when I prayed that prayer, I didn't believe my own promises. They rang so hollow. I did not fully surrender it to God, and that is something I deeply regret. Instead I was caught in a cycle of sin and shame, sin and shame, and I didn't feel like going to church or reading the Bible, and I was too scared to tell my parents. I felt so incredibly stuck.
Enter this week. I went to church with my aunt last Sunday, and afterwards when we were having lunch I asked her if she went to church every week now. I know that in the last couple of years it wasn't consistently because she had to take care of my grandparents and found going to church inconvenient. She told me last week that she has been going almost every week now, and that for a long time she didn't go to church because she felt like a bad person, that she didn't have it all together. I turned to her and I said in my broken Chinese, "Aunt, church is not for good people." God doesn't care about your resume, your list of good deeds and having it all together in order. That's not what Jesus is about at all. He came to save sinners, to heal the broken, to show compassion to the poor and the weak and the people who do NOT have it together at all. It makes me so sad that for a long time she didn't go to church because she was ashamed of herself and didn't feel deserving to come before God or to fellowship with other believers. It's not about deserving it at all, because we don't, deserve it I mean. When I think about it more and take a genuine look into God's mercy and grace, I am brought to tears of humility. How amazing, how divine.
In so many ways I am still ashamed. Maybe it's more accurate to say that I'm not ashamed anymore, because I know that I am a sinner and that I am forgiven. Jesus covered my shame. He did this literally with Adam and Eve by making clothing for their naked bodies, but He did it through Jesus when he died on the cross for our sins, for our shame. I try not to take that for granted, but I still do. It doesn't penetrate my heart and register all the time. Actually most of the it doesn't, to be honest. I think I'm still scared a lot of the time. Scared of messing up and being vulnerable and being myself. Gosh, just being myself is hard, you know? I'm constantly thinking of how to be polite, of how to not offend, of how to come off cool when I know I'm totally not. Funny that being UNcool is now the new cool and "cool" sometimes comes off as being pretentious. But I don't know how to be either and I'm not used to really being myself around other people. So I'm still trying to figure it out and I have it completely untogether, but I'm hoping that God will change me and use me and that I will not be ashamed. I'm hoping that I can run into marvelous light, out of darkness out of shame.
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