Troubled Waters

  “Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.” Genesis 3:21

  They were only ashamed of their nakedness after eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were so ashamed they hid from God. Only after God had covered their shame did the Lord cast them out of the Garden of Eden.

  This one line contains so much information about God, His heart and His plan for our salvation. Hmmm, I have never thought of salvation as being freed from shame…maybe it’s because it is still part of my life in ways that aren’t always obvious. Shame can be a subtle foe that becomes so ingrained in my thinking it becomes “normal”.

  Until I look it in the eye.

  Salvation=freedom from shame.

  Shame is defined as “a painful feeling of humiliation of distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour.” (Google)

  Yet the enemy of our souls is very good at making us ashamed of what is good and right because his role is to keep us from living in and through the freedom granted to us through Jesus Christ. The pure sacrifice whose blood covered our sin, our nakedness and our shame just as God did for Adam and Eve the moment He killed an animal for its skin.

 

  I needed to hear this message again.

  Saturday night was a night of vivid nightmares. I’d wake up, distressed, then fall right back in to the awfulness the moment my eyes closed. It left me struggling at Church. The men had laid on a breakfast for the ladies in celebration of Mother’s Day. The joyous noise of people laughing and chatting, as well as the busyness of people moving around filling their plates, drove me into another room to find some quiet as I wrestled with an anxiety level that was through the roof.

  I felt naked and vulnerable so I tried to hide.

  And I felt shame. Shame: that I have a disorder that has such an impact on my life. Shame: that I can’t control it. Shame: that I couldn’t reach out for help. Shame: that I even felt I had to. I was a mess.

  But God is good. He made sure I got a spray of carnations that were being handed out to all the moms, sending a little girl into the theatre. I guess I wasn’t hidden so well after all.

  (Smile.)

  There is nothing hidden that God doesn't see. There is nothing He won't do to set us free. AMEN!