Sitting in the sagging 1970’s green chair in my writing
professor’s office, tears flowed down my cheeks. Rough copy #3 of my Spiritual
Essay lay open across my lap, my tears dropping, smearing black ink. Avoiding
my professor’s, “I-can-see-right-through-you” gaze, I shuffled the white papers
in my lap and stared at the frayed blue carpet under my feet.
I couldn’t figure out how to end my essay on the Samaritan
Woman, and I didn’t know why I was runny-nosed sobbing about it in front of my
professor. (Talk about embarrassing!)
But one thing I knew for sure—I understood the Samaritan Woman, was just
like her—looking for Living Water in all the wrong places, filling my water
jar— heart—with good grades, guys and the affirmation of others.
Just like the Samaritan woman, I felt like an outcast. She
was a ‘worthless’ half-breed and I the naïve, homeschooled ‘nobody.’ And just
like the Samaritan woman, hoping for redeeming love, I’d thrown myself into bad
relationships with guys who cared nothing for my soul. Just like the Samaritan
woman, I felt shame for what I’d done and what others did to me.
Just like the Samaritan woman, I longed to be worthy of
love.
But as a 20 year-old college student melting down in my
professor’s office, I didn’t understand how
to overcome my feelings of worthlessness. I knew “Jesus is the answer” but couldn’t explain what that meant in the
day-to-day of life (which is why I couldn’t figure out how to end the dang essay!).
Years later, as a 35-year-old woman, I picked up my Bible and read the
Samaritan woman’s story with new eyes. As
I read her story in John 4, I saw how
Jesus looked at her—with compassion and grace—and I longed for Him to look at
me as he looked at her. Jesus knew everything
she’d ever done: “The fact is, you have had five husbands, and
the man you now have is not your husband!” Jesus also saw through her feeble
attempt to deflect Her shame onto Him: “you Jews . . . ,” and Jesus, knowing and seeing ALL of this
woman, still
offered her Himself. In offering her Himself, he offered her Life and Dignity—worth.
Then, full of Living Water, full of Jesus, free from shame, this woman invited other Samaritans to see Jesus: “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did!”(John 4:29, emphasis mine). After the Samaritans saw Jesus for themselves, they declared: “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” (John 4:39-42).
For the Samaritan woman and her people, the cure for shame was truly seeing Jesus!
For most of my life, I tried to “cure” shame with performance.
Just like the Samaritan woman, I filled the water jar of my heart with human
effort: reading the Bible, going to church, singing worship songs. I thought my efforts
alone would somehow make me worthy of love and acceptance. But performance
didn’t heal shame, and when I inevitably screwed up, I fell deeper into the
black pit of believing “I’m just one big loser!”
For years I tried climbing out of the black pit of shame by preaching biblical
truth to myself: “I’m made in the image of God, so I’m worth something!” and “God loves me, so I am valuable!” But, as
the Christian counselor Ed Welch says, merely telling yourself the truth over and over again “usually
doesn’t work.” (61*). Just knowing I was made in God’s image, that
he loved me, didn’t make me believe I
was worthy and loved.
Ed Welch offers this wise
advice to people who, like me, were/are trapped in the pit of shame: “Try a counterintuitive approach to escape
shame. Try changing the subject so it is more about God than about your shame.
The basic idea is to focus on the matchless worth of the Lord God and then get
connected to him . . . . The cure for
shame will always be found in how we
become connected to God. ”(Welch 61, 103).
In other words, the key to overcoming shame is getting your
eyes off Self and on God. Just like the Samaritan woman, we need to stop
filling our water jars—hearts—with human effort and truly behold the face of
Jesus.
But how do you do that?
Scottish pastor
Robert Murray McCheyne, says this:
Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten
looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and
yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief! Live much in
the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in
love, and repose in his almighty arms . . . . (Robert Murray*, emphasis mine)
Looking outward—towards Jesus—instead of inward, towards
Self, isn’t easy. Setting aside human effort to seek and savor Christ requires
acknowledging that our worthiness is found in our connection to Christ Alone. We
must learn to be like Lazarus’ sister Mary, who understood, “few things are
needed—or indeed, only one . . . [Sitting]
at the Lord’s feet,” (Luke 10).
When our eyes are on Jesus, shame loses its power, and we
see ourselves as He sees us—Beautiful, Worthy, Redeemed. And just like the
Samaritan woman, when we see ourselves as God sees us, we are free to share our
story with everyone we meet because Christ covers every part of that story—good
and bad—with Himself.
“Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so
closely,
and let us run with endurance the race that is set before
us, 2 looking to Jesus, the
founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the
throne of God.” (Hebrews 12: 1, 2, emphasis mine)
* Ed. Welch quotes taken from his book Shame Interrupted. You can view this resource on Amazon here.
*Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne
[(Edinburgh
