When You Don't Like Your Story - 5 Day DevotionalSample

 Shame isn’t just a feeling that you have done something wrong, but a sense that you are something wrong. It is the intensely painful belief that you are damaged beyond repair and therefore unworthy of love and acceptance. Shame is a deep-seated belief that you are irreversibly flawed because of past failures, mistakes, abuses, or misuses. It serves as a zoom lens that tightens the view so that all you see are your faults. As long as you and I remain under the cloud of shame, we will never have a better story or experience the victory in it. That’s why it’s so important to find our way out.

Some confuse shame and embarrassment; however, the two are very different. Embarrassment is what we feel for a moment when we accidentally burp at a dinner party, walk out of a public restroom with toilet paper stuck to our shoe, or call a friend by the wrong name. Embarrassment is temporary and doesn’t have lasting effects on our life. Embarrassing stories are often humorous. Shameful stories never are.

Guilt is another experience that is often confused with shame. Merriam-Webster defines guilt as “responsibility for having done something wrong and especially something against the law.” It defines shame as “a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety; a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute.” Did you catch the differences between the two? Guilt is a feeling. Shame is a feeling that leads to a condition.

The experience of guilt and shame may feel the same for a moment, but they lead us to different conclusions. We feel guilty because of what we’ve done; we feel ashamed because of who we are. Guilt says, “I made a mistake.” Shame says, “I am a mistake.”

Healthy guilt is necessary to lead a healthy life. It can lead to confession: “I am sorry for what I’ve done, will you please forgive me?” The positive outcome of dealing with guilt is that it prompts us to pursue restitution or reconciliation. It causes us to run to God and ask for his forgiveness—or at least it should. If we don’t carry our guilt to God so it can be removed, that guilt can carry us into shame where it remains.