A Story of Grace (Part 1): Shame

It was November 23rd, 2013. I was in my final year at GMU and I was sitting in the third session of the EVA Conference with InterVarsity. Though I didn't know it at the time, that talk was about to turn my world upside down.

Let me back up a little.

I've been a Christian most of my life. I've loved Jesus since I was a little girl. But I could never shake this fear that maybe He didn't love me back. Of course I knew that wasn't true. And if you asked me, I knew the right answers: God loved me no matter what I did. He loved me and gave Himself for me. We love because He first loved us.

But in my heart, I felt like the tax collector in Luke 18:10-14 crying out as he beat his chest, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" all the while fearing He saw me as the proud pharisee who would be left unjustified.

I knew my faults. I knew how often I fell short of the perfect standard He set. And I knew that was why He died for me. But I felt like now that I had this gift of salvation, I needed to get it right. I understood justification, but it was sanctification that had me tripping all over myself. I knew I was justified by Christ. But it felt like sanctification was on my shoulders. If I wasn't fully surrendered, if I wasn't following all the rules, if there was anything of self-centeredness in me, it was my fault and I'd better fix it quick. God had saved me - I'd made the cut - but I better keep it together so I didn't get kicked off the team. Even though I knew that salvation was forever. Even though I knew He loved me while I was still a sinner. Even though I knew the Gospel inside and out. I feared. I feared so much that I would be like the people in Matthew 7 who said, "Lord, Lord..." yet never truly knew Him.

A lot of this I can look back on now and see clearly. But back then, I couldn't really see it. But I felt it.

So, back to the EVA talk.

The conference theme was "Sexual Identity." This was a topic I'd learned a lot about over the years so I went for the community and to continue growing in understanding it more, but I wasn't expecting anything earth-shattering. I was wrong. Because, as the speaker started to describe guilt (what you've done) versus shame (who you are), something started happening inside me. She talked about the way we fear our sin being exposed because of the isolation, exposure, and vulnerability of it. She talked about the vulnerability, humiliation, and loneliness of Christ's death as He hung on a cross, naked and exposed for all to see. Then she said something I will never forget: She said most of us know that Jesus died for the guilt of our sins, but that when He died that humiliating death, He also took on their shame.

That hit me hard and broke down something inside. It hit on something that I had not been able to articulate for a long, long time.

I knew Jesus had died for the guilt of my sins. I knew that.

But the shame? The constant feeling of unworthiness, never measuring up, dirtiness, imperfection? He died for that? He took on that? Therein lay the disconnect between what I knew in my head and what I lived out in my heart. Therein lay the the burden. The striving. The fear.

I was ashamed. I felt so. much. shame. And I never knew it until that day.

It was a turning point. A single moment that began a process that would take another year to really understand. The battle did not end that day, but now I was awakened to it.

I'll be telling this story in a few parts. But this is where it began. This was the day I started to really, truly, at-the-heart-level grasp something about grace.

Over the past year, God has been teaching me a lot about Grace. His Grace. And how free it truly is. But it took a long journey of trying to earn it for me to really get how great Grace is.

So this is my story. But it's really His story. It's the story of the God who loves. The God who came. The God who saves. And the God who transforms.

I hope to tell this story in a series of snapshots into significant moments as God began transforming my understanding of Grace, sanctification, and our identity in Him.

Soli Deo Gloria