Girl, Shame is NOT Your Ministry

Shame. Shame is a really small yet big word that gets thrown around without context of where the root of the word came from. I am not talking about the dictionary definition of shame, but the shame that likes to sit next to your bed before you close your eyes to sleep for the night. 

I was sitting at a conference years ago with some church leaders in front of me. I was in my early 20s and felt a little wounded and lost in who I was becoming and letting go of as a young woman. At that time in my life, I was walking into ministry and running a non-profit organization for teen girls. I began to share with these leaders my heart and some of my struggles as I was figuring out what life ahead looked like. I then vividly remember one of the church leaders proudly looked at me and said, “People say shame on you. Jesus says shame off you”. Those two lines flying out his mouth felt like a ton of bricks were falling off of my shoulders. If I could find a bathroom nearby at that moment, I would have flooded the sink with tears of relief. 

Life was drastically changing for me and I desperately wanted to avoid the shame part of the story. I was 21 years old when I taught my first sermon and at the time, it was a glorious moment to ponder on but months after, trials hit me. I didn’t know half of what was in store for my life after fully being called to ministry.

It was suddenly when things got hard. My relationships with friends and people I looked up to started to change. I felt boxed into a place of loneliness while walking into a new thing God was doing in my life. My 21-year-old self struggled to process and feel what I was enduring in my mind.

A part of that was shame. Stepping into a new world with God meant some things had to die in the process. There were things I could no longer attach myself to and some of that was painful to let go of like relationships and habits that could no longer reside in my next chapter of life. I began to think about my past lifestyle and how that prevented me from fully stepping into where God was leading me at a young age. What would people say? What about the things people once knew about me? How do I explain to peers what God is doing in my life?

That is what shame does. Shame creeps in with questions at the most inconvenient times when God is stirring up a new heart, a new passion, and a new vision for your life. If I could look back to my life in my early 20s, I would tell myself, “Girl, shame is not your ministry”.  It most likely would have prevented me from going through cycles and submitting to the lies that shame belongs to me.

There are several women in the bible that I love that share a story of shame. One of those stories was about a woman who had an issue of blood for twelve years. That is a very long time to carry such a thing on her physical body and I am sure that it impacted her health in other areas. As that woman touched Jesus, she was healed from her issue of blood. This meant that the woman was also released from any shame she carried about who she used to be. 

Shame was no longer her story. She was adamant about getting to Jesus because she knew he was the only one who could heal her from her deep-rooted places of pain.

Shame shows up at the oddest and most sacred places of our lives. Shame shows up in our body image as we reflect on the clothes we used to live in that no longer fit us. Shame shows up when our past failures and mistakes are presented in where we are today. Shame likes to show up when God is pulling and stretching you in a new direction. Shame makes you believe that even with repentance, you’re not forgiven for all the things in your past. 

Shame does so much but shame won’t win. Like the woman with the issue of blood in the Bible, she was touched in a new way that uprooted any shame she may have carried with her along her journey.

I am not sure of your story, or your testimony. But whatever it reads, shame is not your ministry. Jesus paid for that price of shame on the cross.