Uprooted From Shame

-Excerpt from ‘Uprooted From Dead Soil’ by Samanta MN (soon to be published)

Shame is a breach in your identity.

The longer it remains, the more damage it causes.

Shame and condemnation go hand in hand.

When your soil has been contaminated by shame, any seed that falls on it will be ejected. Shame builds walls of separation between you and anything external, between you and God.

How can one be healed from the poison whose main effect is to separate you from your healer?

If the breach has happened in the physical realm and it is further enforced by shame and mental affliction, of course, it is difficult to divert your gaze to the invisible.

Yet, that invisible force is what brings forth your healing.

God is the One who brings forth healing.

Nothing in regards to us, nothing that we do, shocks Him.

God doesn’t look down on us when we fail or slip up.

He doesn’t share the same critical and judgemental mind we humans have.

If anything, when we fail, the Lord wants us to draw near and embrace the forgiveness He laid His life down to give us.

My testimony.

Shame was my silent killer.

It used to eat at my conscience and leave me malnourished of confidence, self-esteem, and security within myself.

Although on the outside I would appear perfectly fine, often within myself, I felt disgusted, ashamed, and angry because of the sexual immorality and trauma I had faced during my earlier years.

When I say that shame is a breach in our God-given identity, I mean it.

Who was I, a mere human, to think that God would be more disgusted or equally as disgusted as I was with myself because of the defilement that occurred upon my body?

My vision was thoroughly limited to see the help available to me, so I kept entangling myself in the deceitful web that bound me.

God kept calling me back onto His restorative grace but holding onto the lies I believed seemed easier than seeking and grasping the reality that I could not see.

Though vaguely, I understood that Christ died for my sins and for my shame, I was still occasionally plagued by disturbing thoughts.

God is not a God who would torture His people, whom He loves.

For my freedom's sake, I had to swallow that fact and let God in.

That included being truthfully vocal about what I was going through, even if that included audibly admitting that I didn't fully trust Him or that I felt hurt or that I didn't see myself being delivered.

God acknowledges a heart that is honest and humble before Him.

"God, I believe you're able to deliver but I currently don't think you can do it for me. Please, help me and help my unbelief."

You cannot secretly want God’s help; He will not secretly give it to you.

You need to be loud and vocal so that the deliverance you receive will be a mighty one.

The children of Israel didn’t secretly cry out to God, nor did they wait for God to figure out their suffering.

They cried bitter tears of pain and hardship.

Tears of anger and anguish.

Tears of regret, because what once was a great nation suddenly became an enslaved nation due to disobedience.

They forsook their shame and cried out.

Their cries reached God to the point where He Himself came down to deliver them.

Shall He not do the same for you?

He already came down and not only delivered but died for you so that oppression and despair would no longer be your daily bread.

Why are you not accessing that grace?

Nobody can cleanse you or your conscience except God.

This was a concept I failed to grasp early enough.

I was using vain rituals as my antidote because I believed in my methodology more than I believed in the helping hand of God.

Yet, I could not permanently find peace.

The perspective of myself was deeply distorted; these practices only soothed the surface of my wounds, while deep within, the wounds were still rotting.

I was intricately in bondage and unable to see a way out.

Therefore, I found myself dabbling deeper into these things, unbeknownst to me at that moment, going deeper into sin.

God knitted us in our mother’s wombs with precision.

Therefore, it is only He who can access our deepest wounds and heal us.

He can cleanse you and restore you.

He sees you as worthy of being healed and restored, worthy of living a hopeful life.

He can do all of this and more, only if you are willing.

You are not a beholder of shame.

You are not a vessel of shame.

You are not a container of your past regrets.

You are a container of the Holy Spirit.

The Creator and the Father of Spirits.

Don’t you ever think that you cannot overcome that spirit of shame, anger, or condemnation... the Father of them all lives in you and they bow to His name.

Behold Him and become.

Fixate your eyes on God, even if it seems foolish.

The most difficult but important thing I had to do to access the faculty of grace and healing that has made me into the powerhouse I am growing into today, was to forgive myself.

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Let that be your starting point.