Deep Hurt, Deep Healing: What is Shame

Deep Hurt, Deep Healing

Part One: What is Shame?

Deep Hurt, Deep Healing….What is Shame? So many people have experienced deep hurt, but sadly have only received superficial healing. It's sad because God offers us so much more than that.

Over the next several posts I'll be sharing part of my book, Healing the Hurts of Your Past. Welcome to Part One.

Deep Hurt, Deep Healing

I want to take a look at Deep Hurt and Deep Healing. The Bible does an amazing job of laying out, not only the problem of deep hurt, but it also lays out how to find deep healing. In fact, one of the many reasons I’m convinced of the truth of the Bible is how accurately it identifies our hurt and gives us a solution that meets our need. Let me show you what I mean. In Genesis, chapter 2, it describes how God created man and woman and then it says:

Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. Genesis 2:25       

Imagine that. There was a time when the word “shame” didn’t even exist. There was no insecurity or self-consciousness in their relationship. There was no fear of being criticized, or judged, or rejected by the other. There was total acceptance.

Defining Shame

What is shame?  Many people confuse guilt with shame. But GUILT comes from feeling bad about what you’ve done, while SHAME comes from feeling bad about who you are.

Let me add to that: Shame is rooted in the lies you believe about yourself. Guilt says, “I failed,” which might be true. But shame says, “ I AM a failure.” Shame causes you to take a leap of logic and conclude that since you failed you ARE a failure.  

Now, that might FEEL true, but it’s a lie. And this is where I want to intercept your thinking and help you to see things from God’s perspective. It's at this point that you face a fork in the road. I want to make sure you take the right path.

Where Did Shame Come From?

It’s interesting that shame entered the world when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. That’s when everything changed. Whether you believe in the literal story of Adam and Eve or not, the truth is that shame enters when we break our connection with God.  It says:

At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. Genesis 3:7

Their eyes were opened. That means they saw something that they had never seen.  Now, be careful how you read this. It’s not like they were saying, “Oh my gosh, we need to get some underwear quick to cover our private parts!” Like, up until that time they never thought to look below each other’s neckline. That’s not what’s going on here.

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God something happened...physically. They went from being naked, WITHOUT shame, to being naked WITH shame. So what happened?  What did they see that brought about their shame?

Shame and the Loss of Glory

The problem wasn’t that Adam and Eve were embarrassed to see each other naked. No, the problem was they saw that something was missing that they once had. Their shame came from what they lost.

So, what did they lose? They lost their glory. Glory is the radiance of beauty. Adam and Eve were created in God’s image and so they radiated God’s glory. They were beautiful. Stunning. If you saw them you might mistake them for angels because of their incredible glory. But they lost their glory because they were more interested in pleasing themselves than pleasing God.

Adam and Eve probably didn’t realize they radiated God’s glory until they lost it. Like the song says: You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone. Once they disobeyed God they suddenly looked like you and me. Nothing special. It would be as if the moon stopped reflecting the sun. It would suddenly become just a big dark rock in the sky. That’s what happened to Adam and Eve when they lost their glory.

We are still suffering from that loss of glory today. That’s why we spend so much money trying to help us look better than we really are. And that's why we are obsessed with rock stars, royalty, and anyone with the appearance of glory. They seem to have what we lost and what we want.

So, how does shame impact our behavior? In many ways. I'll take a look at these ways in my next post that looks at what shame looks like.

To learn more about shame and how you can recover from it, check out my book, Healing the Hurts of Your Past.

Subsccribe to readingremy.com on the home page and you will receive the first chapter to my book, STUCK… how to overcome anger, forgive, and reclaim your life.