From Shame to Grace

   Shame.  We hear about it, but just what is it and why could something like grace impact it? A definition of shame is: “a painful feeling, having lost respect for oneself because of improper behavior that causes feelings of dishonor or disgrace.”  Some people live with feelings like this and are driven deeper into them by shaming; the act of someone else casting judgmental statements or actions attempting to cause or make someone feel shame. 

  In the real world, it can look like this:  I was 10 years old when a neighbor man sexually raped me. My older brother was physically abusing me at the time and one day one of his friends gave me pornography to keep me busy while they did things they didn’t want me to see. The times I started to tell anything to an adult I heard the words “God doesn’t like tattle tales, now shame on you.”  By the end of my tenth year of life, my feelings of shame were deeply embedded and tended to go deeper every year. I wanted to tell someone but my experiences led me to think that I would be shamed more. I feared abandonment by the people that were close to me. I didn’t think anyone would understand. I believed I was the only one who struggled with feelings of guilt and shame over my secrets.  My only comfort was porn and a fantasy life of being accepted and loved. The pictures and fantasies never verbally shamed me. Yet the only thing the porn and fantasy life seemed to ultimately provide was more feelings of shame. I remained silent about my internal struggle until I was 38 years old.

  Shaming can look like this story: A man I know is in the process of climbing out of a deep pit.  He has very little material assets; he has worked summer carnivals to get some money. He looks tough; the life he has lived has been tough. My wife and I sit by him nearly every Sunday at church, which isn’t hard to do because the row he sits in is usually empty. We have taken time to get to know his story of repentance. Four months or so ago,  he met us at the entrance to the church, he was so happy to see us because he was sharing a new part to his story. He presented a medallion before the congregation, in a brief testimony. He stated, “For the first time I can remember, I have 30 days sobriety from alcohol, would you pray for me to maintain my recovery?”  He demonstrated awesome bravery to expose his sin and the shame that had bound him. He has been doing great for many months as he attends church service and then goes promptly to an AA meeting. He is so happy as he just landed his first real job and loves working. At a recent church luncheon, this man was sitting with a guest he brought, and a woman removed a chair next to him and moved it to a further away location while stating, “I saw your past record, I won’t be sitting next to you.” How do you think this man felt?

   Shaming can be subtle in Bible study type groups when people begin to share their struggles. It has happened to me and I have observed it happen to others. A person takes the chance to tell the truth about them self and they run up against the “lifer” Christian. They make the statement, “I just can’t relate to all you have been though, I just haven’t had sin in my life, the only sin I have in my life may be that of omission.” 

  Shaming can be very blatant from the pulpit and the pen as sins are labeled, preached and written about and the wrath of God called down. The evil one has this all figured out. If he can get religious people, especially well meaning ones, to shame people about their sin, he knows that he will have a better time holding the sinner in their sin. Why? Sin flourishes in secret and shame holds a person to secrecy about the sin that controls them. Just think about it. In the privacy of your own mind, you probably have something you don’t want anyone to know. You think if people knew they wouldn’t think the same way about you, they may not even want to be around you anymore. You fear they might even tell other people to make a bad example of you or to make themselves look good. So you keep your secret, praying for God to deliver you from something you have never been able to get free of. 

  Probably one of the hardest things I ever did in my entire life was to risk telling the truth about my secrets. By 38 years old, I knew a lot of people. I had been a two term city mayor, I was involved in many civic organizations, a church leader and I had a successful business. My name was well known. I had a lot of fear about what people would think and how they would treat me. I reached out for help out of desperation. I had a close encounter with suicide and my wife was threatening divorce. I figured the risk of telling had become lower than if I didn’t tell. The next time I might pull the trigger. 

   Some refer to this as hitting bottom. No one really knows where someone’s bottom is except it is a place of utter despair and hopelessness. The fear of continuing to live life the same way over powers the fear of people knowing your secrets. Some of my fears were realized in regard to some people as they distanced themselves from me. But time would prove to me that these people were not people I wanted to have in my life anyway. They proved to be self righteous thorns. Most people were so busy with their own life they didn’t notice. Some others were supportive and encouraging, especially people in recovery for anything.  My recovery group was nothing short of stunningly amazing. Never in my life had I heard such honesty and transparency as people would share their deepest, darkest secrets and never a cast a word of judgment, only demonstrate acceptance, support and encouragement. As I revealed my total inner self over the ensuing weeks, months and years I experienced the acceptance, love and fellowship that I had never imagined possible. As I accepted my first 30 day sobriety medallion and the ones that followed over the months and then years, the slogan imprinted on the medallion and that I was experiencing, was reshaping my entire perspective, it read “From Shame to Grace.” 

   The men and women in my recovery group had sold out to the Power greater than themselves; they confessed their powerlessness over their sin(s) and had turned their will and their lives over to God as they understood Him. They trusted only in God to do for them what they could not and never could do for themselves. 

   All these people demonstrated grace, a free and generous gift of unmerited favor, to everyone who came into the group because they all knew it was only by grace that they, themselves, were accepted by God. 

   Religious people get all flustered over the use of “Higher Power” in the 12 steps and I dare say it is probably because they don’t truly know Jesus or God as the Higher Power in their own lives. They mostly rely on their own power to live a righteous life and are more concerned that people say the right words, especially the right sinners’ prayer words. They don’t seem to fathom that the Creator God of the universe is capable of determining the heart of a person. 

   You see, there is a righteousness from God, apart from the law or doing everything the right way. “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”  (Romans 3:22-24). “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” (Romans 3:27-28). 

   My shame met the grace of God demonstrated through the love and acceptance of broken people, in recovery groups, who were trusting completely and only in the power of God. My shame melted and dissipated as a vaporous mist in their fellowship and care, in their demonstration of Godly grace.

   I encourage you, if you have secrets that you are afraid to tell, find a recovery type group similar to your secret(s). Secular or faith based, God can be at work in either. If you are not comfortable in the group you visit, keep looking for one you do feel good about. Listen, take one meeting at a time and begin to share as you can. These groups, by design, are the safest place to reveal your inner self and begin to find the freedom that can only be found by bringing our sin(s) into the light. A professional counselor specializing in your secret(s) is also a good and safe place if you can afford to do so.

   For myself, I speak and write publicly about what I was once too shamed to tell anyone. Some say I am brave to tell my story. I don’t think that I am brave. I have been humbled by God’s grace. My sins separated me from the life God intended for me, but when, in desperation, I called out to Him, I remember laying face down on the floor and groaning “Oh, God help me,” — not at all the standard prayer, but at that moment He took my hand and began to lift me out of the pit into which I had fallen. “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:10-12). 

   When my shame met God’s grace He forgave, lifted me up and restored my life. I don’t want to keep that to myself. God is even more gracious than my group experiences; He is the Creator of grace. I want people who are locked up in their shame and fear to know that they are not alone; many are suffering in the same silence. I share my story to give hope and encourage people to be reconciled to God. “That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” (2 Cor. 5:19). God greatly loves you and wants to set you free from the secrets and lead you on an unbelievable journey to experience all of His great and precious promises for you.  I share my story in the hope that the church will learn to be gracious and reposition itself as the hospital for sinners it was intended to be and not the cathedral for saints it has become.

  I wrote the short book, Stand Firm. From the Darkness of Pornography and Sexual Sin into the Light of God’s Grace. It is a book on how to use the divine power of God to transform your life. Anyone can apply the principles to anything they desire to change.
   Please feel free to contact me: www.LynnFredrick.com or write:  W8756 Townline Road Ladysmith, WI 54848.