Hello, My Name is Shame

Shame is subtle. It never names itself, rather it names you by your every faux pas, misdemeanor, and disappointment. Idiot, Jerk, Loser and worse in a precipitous cascade of taunts and ridicule.

Shame is a sticky substance that multiplies and hardens into a heavy, yet brittle armor worn over your real self.

Shame is a parasite, that feeds on your low self-esteem and never lets go.

Shame is a bully, an abuser, a monster. Once clenched in its powerful maw, it chews, and chews, and chews up your soul until you no longer know who you are or what you’re worth, so you’re willing to do anything to prove yourself and feel loved.

Whatever metaphor I use, shame grew to be my inferred identity until I was rescued from the monster and given a fresh way of seeing myself through the love of Christ. That’s the gospel, the birth of good news.

I wrote the above in response to homework given to me by editor, and Hope*Writer, Mara Eller when she asked me to describe the before and after me in the memoir I’m polishing. It was supposed to be only one or two sentences which this isn’t, but sometimes you have to write more to get less.

In a nutshell, the before me was living in the past out of an identity of shame, based on what I did and didn’t do.

The after me was living in the present out of a fresh identity based on what Christ did for me out of love. 

She also asked me to list the lies I believed about myself before the moment of transformation.

• I believed I wasn’t pretty enough
• smart enough
• or clean enough to be loved

She asked me to contrast a list of truths I learned through my trials.

• Pretty doesn’t equal lovable
• Smart doesn’t equal worthy
• Clean in this corrupt world is only through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for all of us

She asked me to list key revelations about myself I learned on my journey

• I was an insecure follower willing to compromise to belong
• I used the beauty and accomplishments of those I associated with to reflect well on me
• I assumed I’d be rejected if I didn’t hide who I really was

She also asked what I learned about the nature of love through my struggles

• I thought love was conditioned on merit
• I thought love equaled sex and sex equaled love
• Yet pre-marital sex disqualified a woman from true love because she was used, damaged goods
• I was so confused!
• Now I know, human love, however true, is always flawed and incomplete
• Only God’s love is purely unconditional, and forgiveness is the true source of freedom

I share my homework here because surely some of you readers have been confused and misled just as I was about your identity and worth. We all have our reasons, and they are as varied as we are. And yet, the cure is the same because we are all created in the image of the same God, and we are all under the same curse, created for paradise, but living in the presence of sin’s pollution from without and within.

For my fellow writers, the rest of my editorial homework is to sift and list the scenes from my memoir that portray how I learned the lies about myself and how I learned the truth.

For the future readers of my memoir, I know an outline is insufficient to grasp what coming of age and coming to God has meant in my life, so I must finish my manuscript for you. I share this here to hold myself accountable.

Until then, I’ll just say, if you’d met the old me, I would have said, “Hello, my name is Shame.”

The new me says, “Hello my name is Ann, which means grace.”   

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

2 Corinthians 5:17

     

Cover photo by Julia Taubitz on Unsplash

Copyright Ann C. Averill 2023