*Shame & Guilt vs. Grace
First essential feeling of shame and Guilt
My first realization about sin was in church, I grew up in a Pentecostal church where pointing out someone’s sin was a norm and where perfection was an idea that many thought they could grasp. Many of the Sunday sermons were about our sins and reminding everyone that they were sinners and needed to be better. Everyone in church knew that they were sinners, but walked as if their white shirts could not be stained. I knew what sin was because I heard about it in church, but I never had felt the shame and guilt that comes when you sin, until I was in fourth grade.
Around Christmas time, my elementary school would have a day where students could go to the student store where they had gifts of many kinds that you could buy for your family. And of course as a child you rely on your parents to give you money to buy them gifts. I asked my mother if she would give me twenty-dollars to buy some gifts for the family for Christmas. That day our class went to the student store and everyone was going around the store getting things they wanted for their family. When I walked in I saw all the beautiful shiny gifts on display, my young heart was overwhelmed with happiness because at last I was going to be able to wrap presents for my family, bought by me — or so I thought. When I was done buying a few of the things that I wanted for my family, I stood there waiting for my classmates to finish up. Standing there looking at other kids getting a lot more things then I had, made me wish I could get more gifts like them. I thought to myself, “no one is looking — I’ll just go around and slip some more gifts in my bag”. I had taken about six new gifts through my five finger discount — I felt relieved — no one saw me — thank God.
After school my mom picked me up, she asked me what I got, I opened the bag and showed her all the cute gifts I got. She looked at me, with a face of mystery and said, “ Bryanna I only gave you $20, how did you get so much more than what I gave you?” — I felt like a cornered mouse that was trying to escape from a trap, “ Did you take more money from my purse? ” she asked. I jumped quickly to answer, “ No mama,” — I had to think of something else to cover up that I had stolen the rest of the items, I said, “ the lady from the store allowed me to get more stuff without paying mama.” My mother looked at me with a curious look and continued driving to the laundry mat where she was washing clothes. I stayed in the car as she went to check the laundry. I sat in the car and I remember feeling this burning sensation in my heart that wouldn’t go away, it made me feel uneasy — I lied to my mother. I began to cry, in the front seat of the car I started praying to God and asked him to forgive me for stealing and lying to my mother. I prayed to God and I prayed that he would remove the uneasiness of my heart that I felt, I felt sick to my stomach. When my mother came back to the car, I burst into tears and I told her that I had stolen the rest of the items and that I was sorry, because I just wanted to get them more gifts. It was there when I felt the first feeling of guilt and shame.
Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, himself writes, “It was heavy guilt, not the sort of guilt that I could do anything about. It was a haunting feeling, the sort of sensation you get when you wonder whether you are two people, the other of which does things you can’t explain, bad terrible things”. (10) Just like Miller’s view on guilt was heavy. I, too, felt the overwhelming sensation of sin overcome my heart and emotions. Guilt clouds your emotions and heart, you can’t escape the feeling because it’s like a shadow that follows you everywhere you go.
In Miller’s view guilt was like, “ as if aliens were sending transmissions from another planet, telling me there is right and wrong in the universe.” (8) In other words, Miller believes that in that moment of guilt he understood what was right from wrong because of this feeling of guilt that overwhelmed his heart. It clicked in his brain that what he did was wrong. I would agree with Miller, that when you first experience guilt, it is a foreign feeling. When those essential feelings begin you don’t fully understand why you feel this way, but the sense of morality hits you like a bus and you realize that you’ve done something wrong.
I believe that this sense of right and wrong is a supernatural feeling, because looking back from the start of creation, Adam and Eve hid when they found out they were naked because they knew they had messed up. Animals, don’t feel this sense of guilt as humans do, Adam and Eve felt shame when they found out they were naked. And just like Adam and Eve, we run into our hiding place of guilt and shame, we hide because we think we are too far gone to be saved by a perfect loving father; but grace takes us by the hand and takes us out of our hiding place, filled with shame and guilt.
“Grace means that all your mistakes now serve a purpose instead of serving shame.” utters the writer Brene Brown.
Wendy Mass, a writer on “Good reads,” describes shame and grace as a battle between two wolves. One of the wolves is evil. “ he is angry, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self pity, and guilt.” While the other wolf is good, he is “ joy, peace, love, hope, truth, and compassion.” Shame, the evil wolf and Grace, the good wolf, both fighting for the human heart, and it is an unseen battle. Shame is graces’ enemy, it destroys everything it touches. It shoves you in a corner, making you feel inadequate and small. It hovers over you, like a child hiding under his blankets from the ghosts that haunts him at night. It instills fear, and in that very dark room, the child feels like no can hear him, that he is too far gone in darkness that his screams are distant to his mother.
As for Grace, it is like a mother who comes to the child at night and immediately as she walks in, light enters the room and darkness flees. The light of the mother leaves no room for darkness to stay. When she hugs her child: peace, love, and security transcends over the child and he no longer has to hide because he is seen. And just like grace hugs a child, that is how God hugged me with grace when I had felt I was too far gone and my mistakes were too big for God to forgive.
I realized in the fourth grade that my hands are tainted, with the grime of sin. The consequences of my sin brought darkness and shame, in which I felt there was no way out, but God’s grace wipes my hands clean and calls me righteous.
