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It was the day after my 4th birthday. I was so excited about my new Indian buckskin outfit with fringe around the skirt and down the sleeves. I looked just like a real Indian girl! No cowboy better come within a mile of me! I had a cap pistol, and I wasn't afraid to use it!
I strapped my holster on and stepped out on my front porch to survey the land. I was pretty sure I smelled a cowboy. It's a good thing my chief taught me how to track. I was skilled in the ways of my tribe, and no cowboy was gonna get the best of me.
Carefully, my hand on my pistol, I inched down the porch steps. My sidewalk became a dusty trail, and the driveway was a meadow with tall grass. I crouched at the edge of the clearing, camouflaged by my war paint. They'd never see me here.
Smoke signals went up in the distance, swirling against the bright blue sky, a message that the cowboys were on their way. Soon I could hear horses' hooves thundering down the trail in front of me. Dust was flying as the roar got louder and louder.
In a flash, I grabbed my pistol and aimed carefully. Pow! Bang-bang! bang-bang-bang!!
Just as I was blowing the smoke off the barrel of my pistol, I heard someone yell, 'Oh no! You got me!'
When I looked up, the meadow and the dusty trail dissolved, and I could see my neighborhood street. A blue car was driving down the hill past my house. The man in the driver's seat was holding his chest and looking at me. 'You got me!' He feigned, then smiled and kept driving.
I dropped my cap pistol and ran into the house as fast as I could. I stood there breathing heavily and on the verge of tears. 'What's wrong?' My mother asked me. 'That man! He saw me playing!' I ran into my room, slammed the door behind me, threw myself on my bed, and cried. I could never play cowboys and Indians outside again. People would see me.
I don't have a lot of vivid memories of my childhood, but that one has stuck with me for almost 50 years. I still remember ' actually still feel ' the embarrassment of that day. Embarrassment was a major villain in my childhood. I didn't want to draw attention to myself, especially if it made me look silly.
I can painfully visualize times from my childhood when I was embarrassed about something I needn't have been embarrassed about, times when someone 'noticed' me when I thought I was invisible, and made fun of me. Getting made fun of is something all children go through. There's really no avoiding it, is there? Children on the playground can be cruel, and those of us who are especially sensitive end up with wounds that should just scab over and go away. Why don't they? Why do painful incidents from our past (even harmless ones, like being interrupted in the middle of a cowboy and Indian game!) end up lingering in our psyche, becoming a permanent part of our personality?
I believe it's one of Satan's age-old tactics: shame. Shame is a distorted emotion, something that often stems from a lie about ourselves.
In the example of my cap-pistol incident, it's evident that I was ashamed and embarrassed for no good reason. I was a perfectly normal 4-year-old doing what 4-year-olds do: playing pretend, using my God-given imagination to create a world. Then when the man in the blue car made my play-world 'public,' I was jolted into an incongruous reality: I was in two worlds at once: a concrete driveway and a dusty trail in the old west. These things couldn't exist together. Something was wrong in the universe. So I must have done something I shouldn't have. I never saw adults 'playing pretend.' Perhaps it was something I wasn't supposed to do.
That, of course, was a lie. The truth was that I was using my imagination because God made me in His likeness. I have his DNA. What a gift! And the fact that fantasy can enter reality is the very essence of creativity! The two don't have to be compartmentalized. But I was four, and I didn't realize that. Instead, I became ashamed.
Shame is such a heightened emotion, it permeates our being and sets up housekeeping there, ready to taunt us at any time, causing fear and isolation.
To this day, I'm embarrassed when someone walks in while I'm playing guitar and singing in my bedroom. I'm also afraid I'm going to inadvertently hurt someone by what I say or do. So I often isolate myself because I don't want to risk offending someone or being embarrassed.
This same fear manifests as a desire to not put myself "out there." If someone praises me in public or gives me too much of the spotlight, I'm afraid people will think I'm an attention-seeker, or that I'm conceited, or worse ' people won't really like what they hear, and are being tortured by having to listen to it!
Cue the man in the blue car, screaming in agony after being shot by the invisible bullet of my toy gun.
And I still have a problem letting people in. You may have noticed that my Cowboy and Indian fantasy didn't involve playmates. I'm not saying I was a loner, but I did have a very active fantasy life, and if there was nobody to play with, I had plenty of perfectly wonderful imaginary friends. They wouldn't argue with me or make demands. They wouldn't make fun of me. They wouldn't try to change the rules of the game. What a perfect little world! Kinda like the Garden of Eden...
And since we're talking about lies and shame, and the effects they have on our creativity, our sense-of-self, and our ability to bond, it's only fitting that we talk about what really happened in the Garden with two perfect, sinless human beings: They were lied to. Then they sinned. And then they were ashamed of themselves. It's important to note that they weren't ashamed of their actions, but of themselves... covering their naked bodies so that God, who created those naked bodies, and with whom they had enjoyed fellowship daily, wouldn't see them. And they became isolated.
Instead of seeing their mistake and owning it, Adam and Eve played the blame and shame game. And, even though we are new creations in Christ and we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, something Adam and Eve didn't even have, we still tend to believe lies and allow them to define us.
And... wow. Lies metastacize! That's how a simple embarrassing incident, or even one single sin, can turn into shame. Shame is like cancer. It grows and invades places where it doesn't belong... from feeling sorry about something we did, to believing that we are damaged goods, that our very being is no longer loved and accepted by God.... which in turn makes us try to jump through hoops to please him'or worse, jump through hoops to please other people'instead of resting in the truth of the finished work of Christ.
Just as God took pity on Adam and Eve and constructed clothes for them, He, through his mercy and grace, has clothed us in the righteousness of Christ. So, instead of seeing ourselves through the lies of the enemy, we now see ourselves by looking into the mirror of the living Word of God, which is Christ.
It's kind of hard to be ashamed of our very beings if we see who we really are in Christ, isn't it? The question is, do you see who you are, or do you see a lie? Is there some aspect of yourself that you are ashamed of? Is it you? Or is it something you did?
The Holy Spirit isn't just a tiny angel sitting on your right shoulder, whispering a competing message to the tiny devil's on the other shoulder. The Holy Spirit has completely taken up habitation in you and is transforming you from the inside out. You are the dwelling place, the tabernacle of God.
There's no room for shame in that tabernacle! It is filled to overflowing with righteousness. So whatever it is you're feeling about being unworthy, whatever it is that makes you ashamed to let your light shine before men, I want you to get this very important point: it's a lie.
And the result of God's gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man's sin. For Adam's sin led to condemnation, but God's free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God's wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ. Romans 5:16-17 NLT
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