Shame, the Antagonist of Freedom

Shame.

What a powerful and crippling word. It is one of the number one things that hold us back from anything good, including a relationship with our Father. It is one of the reasons the poor stay poor, it is the reason why the lost don’t return home, it’s the reason we can’t connect to others; it’s the reason behind most of our failures.

Different people/cultures seem to manifest shame in different ways. In America it seems to be more covering it with pride (pride is not confidence) or hiding behind a group, an attitude, maybe rebelliously so. My Farmer's people go the other direction. 

I don’t think I have ever felt shame as thickly as I feel it in this place. Honestly sometimes it suffocates me. 

They are ashamed of their own feelings, that’s why they don’t say I love you, it's a vulnerable emotion to express. Many people don't voice their own opinions or ideas, because well they think their stupid (I never thought I would hear the phrase "I'm stupid" so much in my life). And the hardest part is My Farmer and I are watching it separate his people from being in relationship with the Father, and with each other. It's breaking the deep connections we humans make when we can show who we are. 

Many of the youth of My Farmer’s tribe have stopped learning English, because they’ve decided they are stupid and not smart enough to learn.

It’s funny that I’m here. I am opposite in every way(personality speaking) to this culture. I am direct (too much sometimes) I am an open book, I’m very emotional, romantic, and outspoken. I can't stand a shallow conversation, and I’m a outspoken WOMAN. But I often wonder if our Father designed that on purpose. These people teach me to respectful, diligent and be humble, while maybe I'm meant to waken them out of their shame. 

We are living together, these people and I, constantly making each other uncomfortable.

 I’m not going to lie and say I’m patient and always saying the right thing to My Farmer’s people. I lose my cool, get so angry and patience goes out the window. And then guess what happens, shame begins to take seed in me.

Me, the control obsessed Americanness, has lost control over and over. Especially since raising a kid.  I was prideful enough to thinkI’ve got this, I’ve nannyied, babysat, been a counselor, I can raise this kid. Well I'm learning my lesson. A Lao kid, is not an American kid. Not in the slightest.
The children here are completely wild, by age 5 they are pretty much independent and not being watched by a parent. My Farmer and I took in a TWELVE year old. so he has been independent for quite sometime. 

If our wild child doesn’t want to do something, he just goes into the woods, and feeds himself avoiding me all day. While I’m used to American kids who can’t even make a peanut butter sandwich on their own, i'm used to having more power with kids. Here I have no leverage. Shame has been the biggest monster for me with him. 

Yesterday was the fourth time he cut school. Amidst countless other rules he had broken. And positive reinforcement, discipline nothing was working. We didn't know what to do. My Farmer and I talked about having a meeting with him, letting him choose, to live with us and abide by our rules and if he couldn't then he couldn't stay with us any longer. My heart was breaking at this thought. Because as much as he can drive me crazy, I really love this kid. 

In that moment I was feeling such fear, shame and unworthiness. How can I accomplish anything if I can’t even take care of one child? We were planning on speaking to him privately when my mother in law (she is awesome, but has VERY different ways of handling things) told him to get out of the house and never come back. It was followed with screaming, crying and throwing things. Yeah not the way we wanted things to go down,

I sat on the floor unable to move. I felt such deep shame, and was accepting the failure and it had me paralyzed. Then I heard my Father. 

GET UP.  The verse about not being led by fear, and that I am more than a conqueror filled my head. 

I listened. I got up and sat outside in the dark with our little boy as he sobbed, gathering his things. I told him he didn’t need to leave tonight, or at all. We are always given grace and a choice. But he had to choose now, what he wanted for his life. I decided to stop trying to be totally in control with him, but be vulnerable. I told him of my fears, my feeling of failure with him, how I loved him. I told him about my dreams of him becoming a man of character, of respect and deeply in love with the Father.

Today is a new day with our little guy who has decided to stay with us. I woke up this morning to him cleaning the dishes without being told. It was his way of saying sorry.

I’m going to go visit with a lady I’ve been avoiding because I don’t know how to be a good friend to her all the time, and I’ve been living in the shame of that instead of just being myself.

I’m going to snap back into me. Because I was designed to be here, to be myself (my strengths and my flaws) and keep making the power of shame uncomfortable here. Shame and fear cannot own this place forever, the Kingdom is here, it’s in my Farmer and I, it’s in the few believers who love our Father without fear of unworthiness. We just need the courage to fight it, and not let it infect our hearts.

Wherever you are today, whatever you’re doing whether it’s work, school, meeting with a friend, raising your kids etc. Approach the situation with bold vulnerability, be yourself and let our Father seep from you honestly. You don’t have to be super good and perfect at everything, really you just have to be….real. That is what this world is craving, not a perfected repressed dishonest you that is too ashamed to embrace the unique personality you were given.

My Father died a long time ago to give us worthiness to stand with Him. To be loved by Him, we don't deserve it, but if we can accept this gift we can be free to love fully, dance unabashedly, live boldly, to look into the eyes of people around us and see them. And that....that will change the world. 

The war on poverty will not be won with money and emotionally distant, well run organizations and churches running like machines. It will be won with people vulnerably loving and sharing life and the Kingdom. It will be won with the blood of the lamb. It's going to take real heartbreak and real love. 

So let's look shame in the face and say not today, not today I'm gonna dance like there's no tomorrow.