Tag: shame

Needing Some Forgiveness for the New Year

It’s Sunday evening and I’m sitting in my living room, fire going, wrapped in a cozy blanket. Kids are reading, and skating, and playing loud instruments. Just another quiet evening at the Heneises. 

We’ve had a wonderful Christmas break. Lots of family time. For the most part everyone has managed to enjoy or at least put up with each other’s company. Apart from a couple days visiting grandparents, we’ve just been home. It has been a nice rest, but I’m ready for us to start back to our normal schedule tomorrow. 

It’s the beginning of the year and this is normally the time that we set goals, make plans, look forward with a hopeful list of all the things we want to accomplish. I couldn’t resist doing the same. I made a realistic exercise and diet plan to start on the first of the year. I followed the plan for day one, and then the next day came down with a really bad cold which wiped me out for the rest of the week. But, this is probably a good thing. I am realizing that I don’t want a “plan” or a “regimen” or anything like that. I want to head into this year making better choices every day. One step at a time. One day at a time. Not a set of rules, but rather a better mindset. 

As I’ve been sick these last several days, I’ve found myself all of a sudden remembering things I don’t want to remember from years ago. Remembering times I was especially selfish or stupid or mean. Remembering times I made really embarrassing mistakes. And I’m sitting here, years later, minding my own business, and all of a sudden I’m in that moment in my memories and my face turns red and I feel deep shame and I wish the earth would just open up and swallow me. Not fun. I was thinking about these horrible memories when we headed to church this morning. And then during the worship service over and over again there was the message of Jesus’ forgiveness and how it changes us and makes us new. We are forgiven. The past is in the past and we are moving forward into this new year, washed clean, filled with the Holy Spirit, following our Jesus  wherever he chooses to lead us.  

Forgiveness seems like a pretty relevant subject when you’re starting a new year. We want this coming year to be wonderful, we want our relationships to be healthy and fulfulling. We want work for our hands that gives us purpose and challenges us. We want to walk into this next year making great choices that will make us healthier and stronger and wiser. But, it’s hard to move into something new without addressing the old. If we want great relationships this year, we may need to go back and apologize for things we’ve done this past year. If we want our work to be purposeful and challenging, we might need to look back at why it wasn’t purposeful and challenging before. If we want to make better choices moving forward, we might need to make an honest assessment of the choices we made in the past that were more harmful than helpful so we can actually see what changes need to be made. And in the midst of all that looking back, we need to not sink into despair. We can ask Jesus to forgive us for the things we have done wrong and then we can move forward, learning from our mistakes and sins, and stepping into the new year with a clean slate. Ready to try again. 

So to all my fellow imperfect human beings, I wish you a Happy New Year. May you learn from the year we just finished, and may you seek and find the forgiveness that washes you clean and may this next year find you wiser and kinder and walking closer with Jesus.  

The Complicated Emotions of an American Citizen

When I was a kid, I lived in Haiti. My parents were missionaries. I lived in Haiti from the age of two to six and then from eleven to fifteen. I was in Haiti in the early 1990’s and was living there during the 1993 UN arms and oil embargo. It was the UN, but my understanding of it as a young teen, was that it was the United States who was pulling the strings to make the embargo happen. 

I watched Haiti be punished by the United States in a way that boggled my young mind. No fuel. No gas for cars and trucks to drive. No way for supplies to get transported to where they needed to be. No food for sale. No electricity. I remember my mother, who worked in the medical field, saying that she could no longer buy the medicines she needed for her patients.  The pharmacies simply didn’t have any to sell. I remember our family rationing our fuel so we could turn on our generator every three days for an hour so that our water pump would work so that we could fill up buckets and vessels with clean water to get us through the next three days before we turned our generator on again. I remember riding my bike to school instead of getting a ride from my parents. I remember our food was very limited and we lived off the canned foods that had been sent to us in care packages. I remember knowing that if we, the rich Americans were struggling, there was no word to describe what the average Haitian was going through. I remember how stressed all the adults in my life were. I remember how fragile and precarious it felt to be an American living in a country that was currently being oppressed by the United States. 

And I was ashamed to be an American. Not only that, I was angry that I was an American. It felt like a curse. Let me be anything but a rich white American who goes around bullying the world however they please, with no care whatsoever for the people they are affecting. 

We came back to the States the summer of 1994, right before Haiti was invaded by the U.S. When we got back to the States we spent a couple of weeks traveling around visiting churches. Our family was not in a good place mentally or emotionally. It was very hard to step from Haiti where people were starving, struggling to survive, suffering; to step from that to middle class America where everyone was healthy looking, well-dressed, well-fed, living in beautiful homes with shiny cars parked outside, and still finding something to complain about. 

Then, the Fourth of July showed up, and it was close enough to a Sunday that the church we were visiting planned a Fourth of July themed service, and they asked my Dad to preach. For the Fourth of July service. I was dumbstruck. How on earth was my Dad going to preach a Fourth of July sermon?? My Dad had just lived through the horror that the United States imposed on Haiti. He was just as angry as I was. Probably more. 

I always enjoyed hearing my Dad preach, but this time, I was on the edge of my seat, waiting to hear what he would say. 

My Dad, stood up on the stage and he preached about what our nation was founded on. The goodness that could be found in our country. He did not say one negative thing. Once. I was listening for it, waiting for it, it never came. And my mind boggled. How could he do that??? How could he say positive things about our country? I think, afterwards, when our family was alone, we questioned him on it. And he said that everything he talked about was true. Even if we couldn’t see it at work at that moment, it was still true. 

That was one of those defining memories. As a kid everything is black and white, good or bad. No gray areas. And it was the first time I had to grapple with the idea that something could be both. That a country could still be considered good, founded on righteous principles, even when those principles were not always very evident. 

I still occasionally struggle with being an American. I’m old enough and have seen enough to know that I don’t desire citizenship in a different country.  I’m very comfortable with being an American. I get a lot of benefits from my citizenship. I have come to love my fellow Americans. But there are times when old feelings get stirred up. Elections have a way of doing that to me. 

Over the past couple weeks my brain has written and erased hundreds of social media posts. I have mentally written diatribes and stopped myself from typing them. I have thought out replies to other people’s posts and then stopped myself from answering. But I still feel the need to say something. To address this political moment that we have all just lived through. 

And so, I am going to take a page from my Dad’s book, and talk about the good in America. I am thankful that I was able to take part in an election. I am thankful that legally as a woman I have equal rights with men. I am thankful for my city and the way that it is run. Every day I see people collecting trash, repairing roads, maintaining electric lines, delivering mail, police and firemen and ambulances responding to emergencies. I am thankful for the generosity of the American people. We are a nation that gives to causes. I am thankful that I can go to whatever church I want, whenever I want, and worship how I want. And I’m thankful that other religions are free to practice in our country as well. I am thankful for how diverse we are as a people, everyone with a unique family history. I am thankful that I can educate my children how I please, whether it’s homeschooling, private school or public school. I am thankful for the beauty of this country and the national and state parks that give us a place where we can enjoy that beauty. 

Our country is a gray place. We are founded on righteous principles, but we have yet to reach a time where we are fully walking out all those principles. But I have hope. The good is there, and I will continue to look for it and find it and be thankful for it. 

Shame

I haven’t written in a while and I’ve been trying to decide whether I even want to start writing again. It has been easier to not write. Easier to not think about things too deeply. Easier to not expose all my faults and weaknesses to the world. 

Yesterday, things came to a head mentally, when I finally put a name to what I was feeling and what has been hindering me in many aspects of life. 

Shame.  

I have been thinking about trying to expand my piano teaching next school year. I sat down and was trying to figure out  how to write a flier of what I am offering. On a whim, I looked up some other piano teachers in the area to see how they advertised and what they offered. And as I read through some of their qualifications and expertise and experience and all that they had to offer, I found myself shutting down. What am I doing? I don’t have all those qualifications. I don’t have that kind of experience. Do I even have a right to call myself a teacher? Am I just being pretentious to think I can do this? And I closed my computer and walked away from my project. Overwhelmed with a yucky feeling of shame. Who am I? I’m nothing. 

I’ve been thinking about my blog this week. Mostly because three different people who I don’t think even read my blog that much, said something specific to me about how important it was that I was writing. And my thoughts immediately went to the realm of shame. Who am I to write a blog? I don’t have anything to say. I’ve already said whatever I had to offer, now I’m done, and writing more is just boring people. Who am I? I’m nothing. 

This morning I was catching up on the reading plan our church is doing. I was about a week behind, so I was settled in to read a good size chunk. I got to Acts 10 and the story of Peter having a vision where a big sheet descends from heaven, full of all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles etc, that the Jews were forbidden to eat in their law because they were unclean. And a voice from heaven tells Peter to kill and eat. Peter responds, “By no means Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” Then the voice from heaven responds “What God has made clean, do not call common.” As the story progresses, we learn that this vision was to prepare Peter for the fact that the Gospel was for the Gentiles too, not just the Jews. Which, as  Gentile myself, is a pretty significant and wonderful event. 

But as I was reading, I found myself stopped abruptly, like running into a wall, when I read those words, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” Because this is what I am doing. God has said one thing about me and I’m saying the total opposite. 

I’m in a women’s Bible study right now and we are doing a study on Ephesians. We are only halfway through chapter three at the moment. But I’d like to make a non-comprehensive list of all the things God says that I am, that I’ve found just in the first couple chapters. 

I am blessed in Christ.

I am chosen in Him.

I am holy and blameless before him.

I have redemption through his blood and the forgiveness of my trespasses.

His grace is lavished on me.

I have obtained an inheritance.

I have been predestined to be to the praise of his glory.

I am sealed with the Holy Spirit.

I have been raised up with him and seated in the heavenly places.

I have been created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand.

I have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

I have been reconciled to God through the cross.

I have access to the Father.

I am a fellow citizen with the saints and a member of the household of God.

God says I have made you clean. Don’t call yourself common. 

And so I am trying. Again. To have faith (Lord strengthen my faith!). To believe I am who God says I am. 

I have adult children. I say these things to them all the time. You learn by making mistakes. Nobody expects you to be perfect, just keep trying. Of course you don’t have experience. You’re just getting started. It will come with time. Don’t worry about other people’s expectations. Just do your best. And if you fail, get up and try again. And I can say all these things to my children, because they are my kids and I know them, and I know that they are wonderful and gifted and I have all confidence that their lives are important and the things that they do, no matter how small, are all part of a bigger picture of who they are becoming and what they will do over the course of their lifetimes. 

And how much more does God see about me and who I am in Him. And he says, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” 

Who am I? In the worlds’ eyes, I don’t measure up to a lot. In my own eyes, I don’t measure up to a lot. But God. He has something different to say. 

So, I’m going to keep trying to become a better piano teacher as I gain experience over time and learn from my mistakes and keep working at improving. And I’m going to try to write more. Because it’s something God has given me to do. And I’ll trust that he knows what he is doing. 

Our Adult Children

This past week I’ve had converstaions with not one, not two, but three different people about Grown Up Children. About how we need a support group for parents in this stage of life. How our adult children need a support group as they recover from our poor parenting. About shifting our approach to our children and learning how to truly let them go to be adults. 

This is a touchy topic for me. I struggle with feeling a lot of guilt, shame, and bewilderment as I try to navigate this stage of life. The bewilderment comes as I realize that all those promises that people gave you… If you just homeschool, if you have daily devotions, if you eat all your meals together as a family, if you just stay connected…If you do A, B, and C, then you will produce a child who enters adulthood gracefully. They will be wise. They will make the best decision every single time. They will have a strong direction for their life and they will pursue it in a straight line, from the moment they graduate high school. They will teach Sunday School and be one of those people that others count as a Great Role Model. All you have to do is A, B, and C… All of these promises are empty. But I think they are empty because they are working off the wrong assumptions. 

I think, as young parents, we start off with unreasonable (wrong) expectations. Maybe, we remember how responsible and mature we were as young adults, and we presume that we are going to make carbon copies of ourselves. Or maybe, we had a rough start in life, and so we parent with the express purpose of making sure our kids don’t turn out like we did. Either way, we tend to forget that these children we are raising are their own person. They have their own strengths and weaknesses. They have their own free will. They have their own lives to chart out. We are called to train and equip our children. Teach them the difference between right and wrong. Teach them about God and all that his Word says about him. Teach them all the skills they need to succeed in our culture. But, what they do with all that information, that’s their choice. And it is not a reflection on us what they choose to do. 

I think we get really hung up on our own self-consequence when it comes to our grown up kids. We tie their behavior to our own self-worth. My grown up kid is doing things I don’t agree with. It must mean I was a horrible parent. My grown up kid is struggling. I have failed. My friends and family don’t agree with the lifestyle my grown up kid has chosen, they must all think I did something wrong. Woe is me. 

And this comes back to letting go of our grown up kids. Our grown up kids are now adults and the decisions they make are on them. Yes, we made parenting mistakes. Every single parent in the world has made and will make parenting mistakes. It is part of the curse of Adam. We are all sinners. We sin against our kids. But every person hits an age where they have to decide what they are going to do about it. They have to make the decision that yes, they have hit adulthood with some handicaps. They have wounds, poor training, perhaps trauma that they now have to work through so that they can get on with their lives. But, they are the only ones who can get on with their lives. Their parents can ask their forgiveness, go to therapy with them, make penance, but in the end, it’s still them who have to do the hard work of overcoming and moving on. 

As parents, it’s hard to accept that. I feel shame and guilt for all the ways I messed up. I’ve thought long and hard about it, and I can give you a pretty concise list of all the things I wish I had done differently. I’ve been trying to make a point to express this to my grown up kids. Own my mistakes. I did this and this and I’m really sorry. Please forgive me. Some of those mistakes will have life-long effects on my kids. But, unfortunately, I am no longer in a position to get them the healing they need to recover from those wounds. They have to pursue that on their own. All I can do is keep loving them, keep being there, and pray like crazy. And be humble enough to accept the fact that God’s grace covers these sins too. 

I have two grown up kids right now. I think they are amazing. I am over-the-top proud of them. They’ve made their own choices and continue to do the hard work of just muddling through, trying to figure things out. Young adulthood is messy. There is no way I would want to go back and live that time of my life again. I am confident that God has his hand on their lives and I am proud to be their mom. 

But, I’d like to add, their progression through adulthood has not looked anything like I thought it would. And that’s not good or bad. It just is. Their story is just beginning, and I’m learning how to step down from Parent-in-Charge to the new role as Chief Cheerleader, Back-up Support, and Prayer Warrior. 

Fat Fridays: Week 2 The Number of Shame

How much do you weigh? The answer of course is, NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! As I thought about writing this weightloss blog, I wondered whether I should disclose where I am starting from. How much do I weigh. After much mental agony I decided that the answer is NO. That is just way too vulnerable, way too out there, way too painful. And here’s the question of the day. Why? Why is it so painful to share our weight? What is it about that horrible number that stirs up so many emotions?

Think about it. We have this system of weights that we invented to give a numerical value to how heavy an object is. It’s scientific. It’s helpful. It helps keeps things fair and equal and even. When we buy food we do it by weight. That way, I know that every time I give you a certain amount of money, you will give me the exact same amount of food every time. 1 gallon of milk. 2 pounds of flour. 4 pounds of apples.

I’m not sure why we started weighing people. Haven’t looked up the history of it. I’m going to presume it has to do with medical science attaching value to certain weights, coming up with a system that says if you are this tall and weigh this much then you are healthy. But, if you are this tall and weigh this much then you are not healthy. Those lovely BMI charts. I am not saying that medical science is incorrect. I’ve read all the articles. I fully understand that the more extra weight I carry around, the more likely I am to develop a whole host of unwanted diseases and syndromes. But why does that number, my weight, evoke so much shame?

When I think about the giant array of heights and body types for women, the idea that there is a certain number that we all want to be is ridiculous. It’s a person-by-person situation. My ideal weight will look nothing like your ideal weight. So, why do we hold that number so close to our chest. No one needs to know how much I weigh!

I think for me that number has come to represent just how far away from perfect I am. Ok, forget perfect. Let’s just say normal. If I was a normal, self-disciplined, healthy individual, I would weigh this much. And I don’t. And what does that say about me? It says I’m a slob. I’m a glutton. I’m without discipline. I’m gross. I’m unworthy. I’m unlovable. And I have a numerical value that tells me exactly how far off the mark I am. And so it becomes a number of shame. And there’s no way I’m going to share my shame with you and so…It’s NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS how much I weigh.

Here’s the problem with shame. It’s not a very good motivator. I have tried to use shame as a self-motivator to lose weight. “Look at you! You’re disgusting! You don’t deserve to eat anything but vegetables and water for the next year. You look horrible. You have do something to fix this mess you’ve made.” And so I go on a diet. And I’m angry. Angry at myself for getting  into this horrible state. Angry that I now have to deny myself all the foods that I like. Angry that other people seem to be able to eat whatever they want and don’t have to deal with weight problems. Angry that I am such a failure at life. Eventually a temptation arises that is too big to overcome, I cave, the diet crashes, and I slowly go back to my relaxed way of eating which is to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, without giving it much thought. So yes, shame is a horrible motivator.

I have heard people say that you need to love yourself. That is the way to overcome weight issues. If you love yourself then you will want to take care of yourself, take care of your health. You will care about the fact that being overweight is actually causing you to be more sick, less energetic, less confident. You will care so much about yourself that you will willingly take on the lifestyle changes and make the sacrifices necessary to lose weight. That sounds good. I like it. It fits with the theme I have been coming back to over and over again. Love God, Love your neighbor as yourself. It seems that in order to love our neighbor as ourselves, we would need to love ourselves, right? So, here’s my question. How do you get to that place where you love yourself?

This number, how much I weigh, I’ve been carrying that around for my entire adult life. I left high school trim and fit, went to college and immediately gained 15 pounds. That crept up to 20 pounds before I got married. This number has been staring at me from the scale for 20 plus years now, speaking it’s message of shame. The higher it goes the lower my head hangs. It’s really hard to love myself when this number is loudly proclaiming how unworthy I am.

When I sat down to write this I had no idea where I was going to go with this. Apparently God has some ideas. I guess it’s going to have to come back to my identity in Christ. The world with all it’s systems of measuring, tells me very clearly that I don’t measure up. Not skinny enough, not rich enough, not smart enough, not connected enough. The world’s message is I AM NOT ENOUGH. Right now I am feeling that so strongly. I’m not a good enough wife. I’m not a good enough mother. I’m not a good enough friend. I’m not a good enough anything. I don’t measure up. How can I, miserable failure that I am, ever hope to change my ways and lose weight? I have tried so many times and I have always failed. I’m just don’t have what it takes. So, what does God say about me?

Here’s a list I found:

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I can add a couple more. I am loved by my husband. I am loved by my children. I am loved by my family. Maybe this person, the one that God says I am, can love herself enough to willingly take on the lifestyle changes, willingly make the sacrifices necessary to be healthy again. We’ll see.