"But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there." Psalm 51:6
Shame is an insidious tormenter who creeps in the night, swallowing joy and light and life. Shame entangles its warped and twisted tentacles into the fabric of our being. It corrupts truth. It corrupts understanding. It deafens us, preventing us from embracing the life giving Words of God, of Jesus, whose power shines into the darkest places of our soul, our spirit and our being.
But we are His beloved. He will help us capture, cancel and correct anything that would get in the way of becoming the people He created us to be.
Evil wants nothing more than to get in the way of this happening. It has one purpose. That purpose is destruction. And it lies. About everything.
Until Adam and Eve ate of the apple, they walked with God in their nakedness. Without shame.
Our body is not evil.
Our body is not corrupt.
The white clothes of God will cover our shame, blanketing it from our consciousness because, as children of God, He sees us as He made us, wove us together, in our mother's womb.
I've been accused of being stuck in the past. I'm not. If I was, there would be no healing. I've likened my journey as moving forward through history. There's nothing I want more than to return to that state of being when I was one with God: the moment He breathed my life into my mother's womb.
The second heartbeat was when sin started working to corrupt the innocence, the purity of life.
There has been a great deal of debate about how much in-utero infants are aware of. There's been studies proving they are far more in tune to what's happening outside than was previously thought. It's why expectant mothers and fathers are encouraged to speak with the new life they are creating. Once outside the safety and security of the womb, the child has familiar voices to reassure her or him.
Whatever a mother feels, the infant can't help but feel it. Anything that affects a mother physically or emotionally affects the child.
If a mother is angry, the child knows.
If she is afraid...the child is also.
If she is happy...the child is at peace.
If she feels shame...the child does, too.
It's impossible for an unborn child to disconnect from the all encompassing intimacy of being formed inside another human being.
Are we born sinners? Perhaps. The knowledge we gained pre-birth can corrupt our understanding of our place in the world. An unwanted child would know from conception it was not wanted. Why on earth would the world want her or him either?
It's an issue many adoptees struggle with. It is a core belief established pre-vocabulary so it often takes a great deal of counselling and hard work to come to this realization.
I've written about this before and found healing by sharing information about the Primal Wound many adoptees experience. It's pertinent to my own life as a child of adoption but this morning I've had a deeper realization take shape.
The foundation for all the shame I've ever felt was laid in the pre-birth knowledge my very existence was the cause of shame.
It was a driving force behind becoming a people pleaser; a child, a woman, who would do anything so the people in my life would not be ashamed of me. I'd already been given away once because of it.
Thank you, Cricket, for being so honest this morning, for allowing me to find the words for the unvoiced pain we've carried a long, long time.
This burden doesn't belong to me any more. I'll pack up the shame and return it to sender because I don't want to carry it any longer. It was never mine anyways.
I'll give those who were/are ashamed of me to God and choose to forgive them. They are as much a product of their culture as I was. I hope they find healing.
God? Forgive me for believing I had to hide this from You.
I feel a gazillion times lighter now.
I like these white clothes. The soothing salve for my eyes feels marvelous.
As for next steps, it's more than okay to put boundaries in place to protect Cricket and myself from being stripped of this beautiful new gown. Praise God! Amen!
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