“Did You Remember to Shut The Garage Door?”

“Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame.
    Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.
You will forget the shame of your youth
    and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.” ~ Isaiah 54:4

“Yes, yes I did shut the garage door. I think I shut it. Maybe I didn’t. Did you remember to shut the garage door? I know you’re asking me. But… do you remember doing it? I don’t know if I did or not.”

Our memories may not be spot on all the time.

When God tells us to remember, He is referring to those things which He has done for us in the past, in order to give us strength for a current, or future spiritual growth spurt. It infuses our faith with hope.

He also tells us, “do not dwell on the past…”

There are three emotions that we tend to dwell on that are usually attached to a past event. They are very similar, like cousins, but one of them is like that one cousin who used to twist your arm, spit in your hair, and start your toys on fire. When we dwell on these, our lives are miserable, no matter how cheerful of a mask we put on to hide our pain.

The first emotion is called ’embarrassment’. It is usually a very short lived episode. Like when you fart in line at the grocery store. You wish you were dead, turn red in the face, nervously laugh, and by the time you hit the second stop light on the way home… you are truly laughing out loud at the occurrence.

Truly – “no harm, no foul,” except the smell. Haha!

The second one is called guilt. Guilt causes fear. We are afraid we will be found out. We are afraid of the unknown consequence. This can be of a longer duration, but if confessed, unless we committed a true felony, we find that the consequences only sting for a moment, and it falls back to just an embarrassment.

The third one. The mean spirited cousin called ‘shame’. This is the one that can, and does, cause a lifetime of hurt, damage, and feelings of unworthiness.

A distinguishing mark of shame is that when you feel it you want to physically run and hide, like when your mean cousin sets your moms favorite kitchen towel on fire.

Shame is contagious. It is usually contracted as a small child, and like a dormant disease, waits until you are older to flare up and it makes you sick. Kinda like shingles.

Another distinguishing mark of shame, it is very convincing. Much like your mean cousin who convinces you to tag along for all of the shenanigans… you can’t resist. Or so you believe.

The most twisted affect of shame is that it convinces you that, “if you did a good thing you must be a good person, right… but then… if you did a bad thing doesn’t that make you a bad person?”

We believe that. We end up believing we are no good, not worthy, and are incapable of being loved by anybody. If they do show us love we don’t believe it, and we create scenarios that keep people away from us so that we create self fulfilling prophesies of loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

A major childhood incident that creates shame is that of sexual abuse.

Then as we wrestle with the shame we become prone to addictive tendencies, and we create avenues of escape through the abuse of alcohol, drugs, sex, and bad personal relationships. As time rolls by the build up of shame, on top of shame, becomes unbearable and believing we are truly unlovable and a horrible person, we can develop a severe anxiety that allows us to contemplate the only way out… suicide.

“O wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of this body of death?” ~ Romans 7:24

My shame came to me recently. It was very evident. It looked like an empty coffee cup that was made of an old school chalkboard. All flat, all grey, with a layer of chalk dust. The interesting thing to me was that it just sat there. Very still, very quiet. Even though my insides were churning, my mind was battling, and my physical body was more than tired, it was spent, and sore, literally from the bottom of my foot to the top of my head.

I had been praying to the Holy Spirit to remove the very desire of my shame. The same way he did in the past with my addiction to alcohol. He removed that desire so cleanly that I don’t even have an inkling to drink, or even want a taste, and he’s given me the attitude of complete freedom from it so that I can sit in a bar (listening to my son the musician, or having supper with my wife) and not be affected in the least. It’s a miracle.

As this was transpiring I had this verse come to mind…

Matthew 23:25-26

“25Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside may become clean as well.”

Seeing the chalkboard coffee cup, feeling the internal war raging between The Holy Spirit and my inner desires, and feeling the physical manifestations of being spent, and sore to the bone, it caused me to see clearly how I was holding on to my own shame. Causing the turmoil. I prayed continually. I was calling out to The Holy Spirit in my mind. I was reciting verses as they came to mind. Even though I was walking as if my feet were in wet cement, and just felt awful. I was also separated from it through the awareness of it. It was marvelous. I kept remembering all the other times The Holy Spirit had helped me.

Then even earlier memories came to mind from when I was a child that I attribute to God. Back when I didn’t know who the Trinity was. The Holy Spirit revealed himself to me through those other experiences and has shown me… he has been with me from the beginning.

The Holy Spirit has showed me what joy is in the past, and when He delivered me this time I knew exactly what it was. I remembered.

“O wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of this body of death?” ~ Romans 7:24

“25Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” ~ Romans 7:25

“For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” ~ Romans 8:2

Praise the Lord! The cup has been cleaned, thoroughly inside and out. Today I am clean. I am full in mind, body, and spirit. I truly am… Thankful and Tankful.