Overcoming Shame with Action Plan (part 1)

Overcoming Shame with Action Plan (part 1)

Shame hurts. It says that you are…

  • inherently defective
  • “less” than others
  • worthless
  • bad

It is feeling bad for who you are. It can also come from what you have done or was done to you.

Does this definition fit of shame you or someone you know? God doesn’t want you under its heaviness. He has freedom for you.

Yes, there’s hope: God understands your pain. He is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18).

Let’s hear a shame story and identify sources of shame. Then we’ll uncover the solutions to overcoming shame.

Also, be sure to read part two “Solutions for Overcoming Shame.”

A Shame Story

Nina experienced shame on two counts, one far worse than the other, and both deeply hurtful.

In grade school, kids teased her. She had a birthmark on her face that she couldn’t hide. Teachers told the kids to stop name-calling. The kids saved the names for the playground. Nina’s parents noticed that she stopped smiling. Switching schools helped a bit but not enough.

When Nina was in middle school, an older neighbor boy pretended to be a friend. She began hanging out with him at his house when no one was home. His first touch on her knee seemed an accident. She didn’t make much of it or tell her parents. His next touch was on her breast. She felt confused. He told her that she was his best friend and that this was their secret game. The following week he manipulated her to touch his genitals.

Her temporary solution: To sign up for after-school activities and avoid him and his house. It helped but she pushed down all of her feelings and told no one.

God’s lasting solution: To debunk shame’s lies while embracing the truth of who you are in Christ. This is your true identity! Please ask for My Identity in Christ handout if you think it might help you to find freedom.

Sources of Shame

Here are common ones:

  • Growing up in a highly critical home. For example, a student brings home a report card with all As and a solitary B, and her parent focuses on the B and expresses disappointment.
  • Growing up in an indifferent home. In this helter-skelter home, a child could pretty much do whatever she wanted — good or bad — and the parents didn’t seem to care. Perhaps they were alcoholics or busy with work or mentally ill. A word for this is neglect. The child may feel that she was in the way, didn’t matter, or had to figure out life on her own.
  • Growing up in an abusive home.
  • Being abused, from the verbal taunts of a bully to sexual assault.
  • Not measuring up to the cultural norm. Examples: dropping out of high school, growing up poor, becoming pregnant while a teen-ager, and so on.
  • Not measuring up to our own standards. Someone who struggles in this regard may think, “I must have more friends to have worth.” Or, “I need more money to matter.” Even, “My work must be perfect.”
  • An embarrassing, traumatic event like a parent’s suicide or imprisonment.

No matter the source, shame hurts. It keeps you isolated from others, trying to hide your perceived imperfections.

Whatever trial you’ve faced, you can know triumph. Jesus loves you deeply.

And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love. (Romans 5:5)

Overcoming Shame Action Plan

Main point: You can shake free of shame. Here is an action plan that you could use. 

FIRST, share your struggle with a trusted Christian friend or a biblical counselor. You may also turn to a pastor. However, take care to avoid emotional attachment and to meet with him no more than one or two times. Titus 2:3-5 says older women should counsel younger women. When you’re vulnerable the wise words of another woman is best.

SECOND, differentiate true guilt from false guilt. The latter is synonymous with shame and is based on feelings, not fact.

EXAMPLE of true guilt.: When you take home office supplies from work, you have true guilt because you stole. Perhaps you had a reason. Maybe your employer was being unfair and you felt that you were “owed.”

EXAMPLE of false guilt: You tell yourself that you are the worst person on the planet that you took something from your employer without permission and were unrighteously angry. You also call yourself worthless and stupid or other names.

GODLY RESPONSE to true guilt: When you respond properly to true guilt, you will own up to your sin. You’ll return the items and talk with your supervisor. You will also talk with God and ask him to change your resentful attitude. The result? You’ll know that God always loves you and accepts you in Christ, and you’ll have joy that you have forgiven and can learn from this trial and become a woman of integrity and courage.

THIRD, identify your negative self-talk. This is easier to say than to do since self-condemnation has become your default; it seems natural, even right.

Start by identifying the self-condemning words and phrases you say to yourself. List them on paper or in the notes of your phone or computer. Keep adding the the list as you notice them.

EXAMPLES of them include “‘I’m ugly” or “nothing good ever happens to me or my family” or “I’m stuck” or “my life sucks.”

FOURTH, challenge your negative self-talk by searching Scripture

FIFTH, build relationships of mutual encouragement.

SIXTH, use social media wisely. So often Instagram stories tempt up to compare ourselves with others.

SEVENTH,  determine to believe what God says about you.

You may also want to check out my helpful eBook 7 Steps to Put Your Past in the Past.

Sexually Abused in Childhood?

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Sexually abused in childhood? Nothing penetrates the core of a child like sexual abuse.

Even the most caring parents cannot always protect their children from evil-hearted sex abusers. Could Jaycee Dugard‘s family have stopped her abduction? Doubtful.

In this short article, you’ll hear:

  1. Stories of survival
  2. Emotional cost of abuse in childhood
  3. Biblical solutions for abuse in childhood

Stories of Abuse in Childhood

Eleven-year-old Jaycee was walking to her busstop on a June morning when a man in a car reached out, grabbed her, and zapped her with a stun gun, then held her captive for 18 years, stealing her childhood.

In her memoir A Stolen Life, she writes:

In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.

For eighteen year I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. . . .For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation. 

Jaycee’s story seems extreme, and it some ways it is; few people remain in captivity for many years and live to tell about it and write a second book titled Freedom, My Book of Firsts on rebuilding a life.

But isn’t all abuse wrong? Molestation by a dad, stepdad, or neighbor is horrible too, isn’t it? The typical course of childhood sexual abuse is seduction (becoming the child’s friend), stimulation (touch: at first “innocent” such as a back rub, progressing to sexual), and silence (“this is our little secret”).

The sexually abued may have lifelong problems.

Each woman responds differently. Here are composites of women I’ve counseled.

  • A 30-year-old was abused in her preteens by a Christian camp director. In high school — with little sense of her value to God — she had sex with any guy who asked. Later she married and was unfaithful to her husband.
  • A middle-aged wife stares at her bedroom ceiling, her husband at her side. He desires sexual intimacy; her mind replays the times a family member sexually abused her.
  •  A mother of two feels shame on the anniversary of the day she slipped into an abortion clinic, pregnant with her ex-boyfriend’s baby, and left empty. She now runs a ministry for women who’ve aborted babies.

The Emotional Cost

The emotional cost of sexual abuse in childhood includes anger, bitterness, shame, anxiety, depression, and other emotions, often leading to idol worship. Idol worship is making something else more important than God.

Another emotional cost is confusion about sexuality and relationships with others and with God. A few examples are sex before marriage (fornication), adultery, homosexuality, and pornography.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say a Christian woman I’ll call Kayla decides that sex before marriage is okay if she loves the guy. Rather than recognizing her identity as God’s precious child and resting in this relationship, she looks to men and sex to give her security–a false sense of security. 

Often she will recognize her mistake and have emotional pain. She may not choose to talk to God, confess, and repent. She may seek a way to numb her pain.

Kayla turns to food. Eating comfort foods calms her and helps her forget her mistake. Without recognizing it at the time, she overeats in order to become obese and less attractive to men.

God’s Solution

God is tender toward the hurting. The Bible uses words like affliced, weak, oppressed, helpless, and brokenhearted to describe those who have been sinned against.

Why not check out these verses?

  • Afflicted. Psalm 9:12
  • Weak. Psalm 82:3-4
  • Oppressed. Psalm 10:18
  • Helpless. Psalm 41:1
  • Brokenhearted. Psalm 34:18

The Bible encourages Christians to be compassionate and empathetic toward the abused.

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. 1 Thessalonians 5:14

Women abused in childhood need hope. They also need to return to faithful service in her family and to God. Are you overprotective of your children? Do you think that sex with your husband is wrong? Do you self-indulge in food, alcohol, or shopping? 

Are you ready to grow through your suffering? If not, what’s getting in the way? Fear? 

What’s Next?

If you need counseling, please contact me . A certified biblical counselor, I can meet with you in person in the Chicago area or by Skype. 

Sharing Hope with Your Heart,

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Does Gospel-Centered Counseling Really Work?

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Does gospel-centered counseling really work? 
Isn’t this a crucial question for biblical counselors and counselees? Listen to this story.

Meet Ashley and Nate

Ashley and her husband, Nate, met with Pastor Bob Kellemen at church the day after their twin sons’ eleventh birthday. With tears streaming down her face, Ashley shared that twenty-five years earlier, not long after her eleventh birthday, a relative had begun sexually abusing her.

Those who knew Ashley would have been shocked. She grew up in a Christian home, was active at church as an adult, served as a leader in the women’s ministry, and was always “pleasant.”

As Ashley described herself, “I’m the good girl from the good home.

“The good mom; the good wife. But nobody knows the ugliness I feel inside. Nobody knows how I’ve pretended and denied all these years. I just can’t keep faking it any longer. Depressed to the point that at times I’ve thought about suicide. Fearful and anxious—terrified I’ll displease someone. Terrified someone will find out what an empty but evil thing I am…”

As Ashley’s voice trailed off, Nate asked, “Pastor Bob, can you help?”

Does the Bible Offer Any Hope?

“Does the Bible offer any hope for my wife?”

How we respond to Ashley’s soul struggles and to Nate’s life questions depends on how we answer a foundational question: “What would a model of counseling look like that was built solely upon Christ’s gospel of grace?”

Continue reading this post at Biblical Counseling Center.

Where’s God When Daddy Abuses?

Do you ever wonder where Father-God is when you suffer? Or, have you asked, “If God really loves me, why didn’t he protect me from the abuse?”

Do you struggle with forgiveness: of yourself, others, and even God?

Then meet Karen Rabbitt, the author of her memoir, Trading Fathers: Forgiving Dad, Embracing God. She appeared on my BlogTalkRadio show — you may listen to the podcast.

Trading Fathers is Karen’s story of her years-long struggle stemming from sexual molestation by her dad that began at age 4. As a young adult, when Karen became a Christian, she expected immediate relief from her emotional pain.

Not to be.

Karen continued to experience shame, depression, and emotional instability. After her second emokaren-rabbitttional crisis in her twenties, God challenged Karen to do the seemingly impossible:

Choosing Forgiveness

If you’ve been there, you’ll identify with her denial, depression, anger, and. . .I hope. . .the moment she finally made peace with the consequences of her father’s abuse.

Karen shares a comforting word: “If you are wrestling with God about hard questions, my memoir will encourage you to keep wrestling. God is a good Papa and he wants you to know him as your Forever Father.”

Visit Karen’s website and read the first chapter of her book.

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