Hey you
on your street corner
with fear in your eyes
you feel the despise
of this world
you know
they don't see the pain that you bear
see the shame that you wear
like necklaces
wrapped around your neck
and you know something: that this world's broken
and so all are we. - Hey You by me. Getting away from all the theological arguments for a moment to talk about everyone's favorite subject: shame. One of the things I've found after talking with people over the years is this biblical idea that we all are broken and sinful is difficult - including for people who profess Christ and have for many years. I understand that. I think because people think this means they must be ugly, disgusting, or unlovable. That they are inherently wrong, deep inside. Something is crooked and will always be. Shame is something I'm all too familiar with. I know the shame that comes about from having done something actually wrong. I feel ashamed for some of the things I've said in the past in my ignorance and pride, and I see how I hurt people. The sweet grace and forgiveness that comes from my brothers and sisters and friends who have so patiently put up with me as well as the grace from God enfolds and surrounds me. That kind of shame has felt healthy, even when it's been hard. But it has not been crushing. Yet I also know the shame that takes your breath away. It makes you wish you could just cut out some part of you that is just you, zip out of yourself, because you hate it. A feeling of disgust that won't go away. A dirty you can't erase.
A shame that comes when you want something, when you longed for something, and then got burned for it.
You wore something that made you feel beautiful and then are told it's revealing and boys are having a "hard time" with it, and you suddenly feel naked and ashamed. But above all, you hate how you ever wanted to be beautiful. You hate that part of yourself more than anything else. As someone who knows the deep shame and humiliation that comes from being used for another's sexual pleasure, it's a shame I am all too familiar with. The part of ourselves we hate the most is our longing to be wanted and enjoyed. We want to be seen and known and loved. We hate ourselves for it.
We all stand on our street corners with fear in our eyes and we despise people like us you know we don't see the pain that we share see the shame that we wear like necklaces wrapped around our necks and you know something? well someone's gotta take pity on us soon... This was something that struck me when Justin Lee spoke of still feeling shame for his desire to be loved by another. And he spoke of being afraid to admit this when in straight company, in case they'd say, "Aha! That is the Holy Spirit convicting you."
But there's a difference between the shame that comes from being convicted and realizing one was wrong - it is humbling, but it is not crushing - and the shame that comes from being disgusted over our own healthy desires for love. For intimacy. To be seen, known, and loved.
Yet something I've come to know is it is precisely in these moments of intense, suffocating shame that at least for me the gospel brings so much healing. The story we are told in the bible shows us clearly that the world is broken. Utterly broken. We speak of peace, but there is none. We are devastated by trauma and loss. Those that love us hurt us the most. We ourselves leave scars on those around us. The disgust and hatred we feel when our dignity as people made in the image of God is stripped away from us just shows how messed up the world is. Not too long ago, we watched as someone leaned on an innocent man's neck until he died because of the color of his skin.
The world is undeniably broken. We all see it and feel it. The world is groaning with the weight of it. This is what Christians mean when they talk about "brokenness and sin". We mean both our imperfect selves and our own propensity to do wrong, and the fact that we also live in a broken world where there is so much pain, sickness, poverty, evil, injustice, and death. But it's not to be this way forever. We know someday all things will be made new. We know the world won't stay broken forever. We also have someone who truly sees and knows every inch of us - yet loves us. Deeply, fully, and more faithfully than we ourselves could ever love.
We do not do things to earn his favor. His favor and love is freely given. This frees us to go out and do the same.
"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." - 1 John 4:7-12.