Quotes about Shame

You feel like an outcast. You don't belong. You feel naked. While everyone else is walking around with their clothes on, you feel exposed and vulnerable. You are seen, and what others see is not pretty. You feel unclean. Something is wrong with you. You are dirty. Even worse, you are contaminated. There is a difference between being a bit muddy and harboring a deadly, contagious virus.

Shame is life-dominating and stubborn. Once entrenched in your heart and mind, it is a squatter that refuses to leave.

With our touch, Jesus becomes our scapegoat. In his touch, Jesus takes our sin and absorbs our shame (Psalm 69:9; Romans 15:3), and we receive his righteousness. If you prefer symmetry in your relationships, in which you give a gift of similar value to the one you receive, you have not yet touched Jesus.

The first steps out of shame will be the hardest. These are the anti-denial steps in which we will put shame into words. You can't do battle with something nameless, and too often shame eludes accurate identification. So we will search for words that bring shame out into the open, where it can be seen and fought against.

You would think that anyone would jump at the chance to escape shame. But that isn't the way it happens. Though shamed people are happy to guide others out of their dark prisons, they are always sure to get back to their own prisons by nightfall. That's home. That's what they are used to.

People familiar with shame are willing to wash feet, but they are uncomfortable with other people washing their feet. They are better at serving than being served. Well, get used to being served.

The language of shame is extreme. Hear it enough and you believe it. You are told you are disgusting and unclean, and eventually you believe you are.

The cure for shame will always be found in how we become connected to God.

All it takes is a tradition of demeaning, critical words from the right person. All it takes is nothing from the right person. No interest in you, no words spoken to you, no love. If you are treated as if you do not exist, you will feel shame.

Shamed people rarely take stands against injustice. Such a stand would mean they would have to go public, which would only double the shame. Instead, once we are shamed, most of us try to make sense of it by believing we are getting what we deserve. So why would we protest?

This was Paul's joy in suffering and shame: "that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead" (Philippians 3:10—11). Notice how this affects your shameful past. It will still hurt at times, but shame will lose its power. The very event that made you an outcast is the one that gives you insight into the mind of Christ.

Then, when shame strikes, it is so nasty you have to numb yourself, and what better anesthetic than your addiction? It is the perfect vicious circle.