“The word comfort is from two Latin words meaning “with” and “strong” – He is with us to make us strong. Comfort is not soft, weakening commiseration; it is true, strengthening love.”
― Amy Carmichael, Kohila : the shaping of an Indian nurse
You know when you get something new, like a car for instance, and then you see that kind of car everywhere? You can't run a block without seeing one. First, you find yourself saying, "If I would have realized there were so many cars like mine, I wouldn't have got this one." At least that's what I would say, because I don't like to be like everyone else. Okay, okay, I did drive a Camaro years ago and there was a saying about how Camaros were like a certain body part, everyone has one. But after that lapse in character, I want to be different. So back to that car! When you get past the fact that there are three on your block you had not noticed, then you start looking at the differences. You like that color better than the color you chose, you like that sunroof, you're glad you did NOT pick those wheels and so on and so on. The point is, right now, I am doing this with shame.
God never ... well has never, so far, given me any type of healing in a "poof" moment. I have to work through every single step. I have studied shame like my life depends on it, and it does. The great wall of shame, shrouded in anger, stands between me and God's plan for me. After all this study, I can barely be in the world. I watch people shame each other and it breaks my heart. Little comments cut deep and I see the knife's reflection in their eyes. I wonder who shamed the shamer. It's like any abuse I suppose; when you are constantly shamed as a child, you either become a shamer like the parent/guardian who shamed you, OR you turn it completely around and never say a negative word that could shame a person, but somehow, the unshamer is just as broken because they are so afraid of shaming they can't tell the truth at times when they really need to.
Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well about the Living Water and in verse 15 she says, "Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw." The next thing He does would not be approved by many Christians today: He tells her to go get her husband. Every time I have read this verse or heard this story preached I get a weird feeling. I have discovered that feeling is shame. Not only did he know she had no husband, but He knew how many she had in the past and all other little dirty secrets. I find it interesting that He tells her of the Living Water and then brings up all of her shame. The Samaritan woman didn't let the shame get in her way of entering into a relationship with Jesus.
I realized shame can only be dissolved by knowing our true identity in Christ. The other day I was watching a teaching and he mentioned an Irish woman who was a missionary in India for 55 years. I then looked her up and watched a documentary on Amy Carmichael. One of the women she worked with told a story about Amy that messed me up, in a good way. In her last 20 years on earth she was pretty much bedridden from a fall. She had chosen one of many women she worked with to be by her side and help her daily. The woman telling the story said, there were several women who could have and would have done a much better job caring for and helping Amy. She asked Amy why she chose this particular woman. Amy said, "Nobody wants her. I thought maybe I could help her." Are you kidding me? For 20 years Miss Carmichael was in tremendous pain and wrote most of her books and other writings from that pain, while ministering to a woman who supplied all her needs, poorly. I have a long way to go. Miss Amy Carmichael knew who she was in Christ. If you want to be amazed by her, get her booklet "If". It's only $1.99 on Kindle right now.
On the same day that I met Amy Carmichael through her writing and the documentary, I also watched a program about young women in prison, who were hanging themselves on the other end of the spectrum. When you have been so intimately involved with shame and the anger you unsuccessfully try to hide it under, the whole world looks different. These girls were so hungry for identity. They fought over the most ridiculous things like girls in the fifth grade. I have watched this type of show many times, but it was much different now. I believe my mouth was hanging open much of the time. Only one woman had remorse about her crime. At one point they had women who had abused or murdered children, locked away in one area and only a wall of windows separated them from the area where they locked up women who were detoxing. The women constantly fought with the women on the other side of the partition. It was some what like watching a volleyball game played with shame messages through a window instead of a ball over a net. One woman said, "You can't let them see that they are hurting you, but it hurts." Any one of those women could have been the next Amy Carmichael had they been nurtured, loved, and told so.
I believe people behave at a certain maturity level, because that is the age they began to believe the lies that they were as dog poop steaming on a sidewalk. We are an angry country, because we are a country that believes the lies of the enemy. Shame is everywhere, and if we could stop fighting through the glass partition, trying to convince others that their crime/sin is worse than ours, maybe we could turn this around. What would have happened if one woman would have complimented, had empathy for or encouraged instead?
“The best training is to learn to accept everything as it comes, as from Him whom our soul loves. The tests are always unexpected things, not great things that can be written up, but the common little rubs of life, silly little nothings, things you are ashamed of minding one scrap”
― Amy Carmichael, A Very Present Help: Life Messages of Great Christans
