What Shame Tried to Silence

Much of this past month has given me reason to reflect, in part due to my mom’s recent passing. As my siblings and I shared funny stories and favorites about our mom and childhood, we laughed when tears could have taken over. We needed that laughter. Privately, though, I kept thinking about how much my mom and I were alike. We had plenty of differences, but there was no doubt I was her daughter.

The obvious first: we looked alike. We had the same body shape, large brown eyes, and naturally dark brown hair. We both loved travel, coffee, music, true crime shows, novels, and standing up for the underdog. She drank her coffee black, though. Mom was much more of a purist than I’ll ever be.

We were also sensitive, sometimes to a fault. We both cried easily, although years of loss piled upon loss have made my tears harder to reach. Mom wept over sad news, kind gestures, surprises, words of affirmation, a delicious meal, or a hilarious comedy. You name it, and she probably cried over it.

Some of that sensitivity was how God made her. But I also believe years of accepting lies about herself left her especially vulnerable. Mom never felt she measured up to the woman others expected her to be. She was her own worst critic. Shame. So much of it came back to shame.

I know that feeling firsthand. I can still recall the first time I felt it. I was in first grade and needed to use the bathroom inside our classroom. While I was gone, the teacher passed out a paper and gave strict instructions: Leave it on the desk. Do not touch it. Do not even pick up a pencil until she says so.

I returned to my desk as soon as she finished instructing the class. I wanted to show her I was prepared, so I picked up my pencil and sat quietly, waiting for the next instruction.

She came to my desk, told me to put down the pencil, and ordered me to turn my hand palm up. Then she slapped it hard with a ruler and walked away. No question. No explanation. Nothing.

I sat there stunned as tears filled my eyes. The ruler may have hurt, but the humiliation hurt more. My teacher punished me in front of everyone for something I didn’t know was wrong.

The classmate beside me noticed my confusion and whispered, “You weren’t supposed to pick up your pencil.”

I told her I had been in the bathroom and had missed the instructions. She encouraged me to tell our teacher. I couldn’t do it. I just sat there, my palm stinging and my shame burning.

Growing up, I was often considered the teacher’s pet. I obeyed. I did my work. I didn’t interrupt class or get into trouble, except for that one day in first grade. My grades mattered, but I checked my conduct grade first on every report card. It was always excellent, often featuring a note about how much of a delight I was in class. I knew my parents would be proud, and they were.

I’m sure shame caught me at other times, but the next moment I remember clearly happened in high school.

I felt proud to be a good student. I also believed I was a good friend.

I had a close group of friends. We spent afternoons at one another’s houses, had sleepovers, went to the movies, shopped at the mall, and, of course, noticed every cute boy who walked past. Once we had our driver’s licenses, the world appeared even bigger.

I fiercely protected my friends. If someone said something unkind about one of them, I set the record straight. I was loyal. I was kind. At least that was who I believed I was.

Then one afternoon, one of my closest friends confronted me in front of our other friends. I will never forget her words: “I thought you were different, Leah. I thought I could trust you.” Then she walked away. Our friendship was never the same.

At first, I didn’t know what I had done. I was stunned and embarrassed. Another friend finally explained that I had repeated something that my friend had told me in confidence. Then I remembered.

I hadn’t meant to hurt her. The words had slipped out, but that did not change the truth: I had gossiped about my friend and broken her trust.

What I did was wrong. Conviction had work to do in me. It needed to lead me to repentance and, if possible, repair. Shame wanted something else. Regretfully, I chose that one failure to become my identity.

Decades later, I can still picture the look on her face. That same troubling feeling returns to my stomach, and I have to remind myself that it no longer has authority over me.

I repented a long time ago. God forgave me. My friend said she forgave me, too, and I hope she meant it. So why do old sins and former moments of shame keep trying to return?

Because the enemy of my soul knows shame can make me ineffective for kingdom work. He knows God has not disqualified me, but he still wins when I disqualify myself.

Satan is the father of lies, and he is very good at what he does. He can wrap a lie around one piece of truth until we can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins. Yes, I sinned. No, that sin does not get the final word over a life God has forgiven and redeemed.

For years, shame kept me from moving beyond the losses, heartaches, and tragedies I had lived through. It told me I had no business doing anything for God because I had gone too far and made too many mistakes. It said He could no longer use me.

The exact moment you stop listening to the enemy’s garbage and lean into reality, your pain gets a second life. It develops a clear purpose. This isn’t a reward for having your life completely together, either. It is just the natural byproduct of a mercy that runs impossibly deep.

Look at what God did through several of the biblical characters we’re already familiar with. God kept David’s royal line intact, paving the way for Jesus, even after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and arranged the murder of her husband. We see the same pattern everywhere in Scripture. Paul went from hunting down the early church and backing a murder to writing most of the New Testament after a blind-siding encounter with Christ. Rahab was a pagan prostitute, yet God used her to protect His spies and placed her directly in Jesus’s genealogy.

God uses the most unlikely characters imaginable—not because their past was good, but because they chose to take one faithful step forward. The sin itself is not the gift. His redemption is. He can use the testimony that previously brought us shame to help someone else escape self-condemnation. People who have been set free can point others toward freedom.

More than nine years have passed since Joel moved to Heaven. I believe I spent about five of those years isolated and determined to ignore God. He wanted to move me forward, but I chose to remain stuck. It was an ugly season, friends. I will share more about it soon.

I distanced myself from everyone and everything, including my Savior. I believe God closed my mouth for that season. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t speak life into anyone else. I was submerged in self-pity, and although I knew the way out, it felt too hard to take it.

The longer I stayed there, the more shame I carried. I didn’t even want to visit Mom because I feared she would be ashamed of me, too. Nothing could have been further from the truth. If anyone could have understood, it was her. Our losses were very different, but the isolation we felt – and the foolish choices we made from within it – were painfully similar.

So, what changed?

There was no single turning point. I began taking one small step at a time toward the woman God created me to be. He was patient. He never stopped pursuing me. The Holy Spirit’s conviction became too strong to ignore. I wanted out of the prison I had entered willingly and locked from the inside. I wanted to feel better. I wanted purpose again. Most of all, I wanted to believe God still loved me.

Eventually, I realized I had grown into more than the old me. God had rebuilt me into someone stronger. The shame loosened its grip. The enemy’s lies no longer pierced my heart as they once did. I could see that little weasel for what he was – a liar, a thief, and a destroyer.

Shame still tries to creep back in, and I won’t pretend it doesn’t. But I am in a different place now. I refuse to let shame settle in and take up residence. I choose to call it for what it is, and through the authority Jesus has given me, I tell it to leave; it has no right to occupy what belongs to God.

Now my greatest desire is to let God redeem the very things Satan used to destroy, discredit, and silence me – and use them to help set others free.

With God’s help, I plan to launch a podcast before the end of the year. I want this show to be a soft landing for Christian women—especially those of us over 45 rebuilding our lives from scratch.

I pray it becomes a place where we can talk openly about the tragedies and losses that turned our lives upside down. In doing so, maybe another woman listening can find the courage to break her own chains and find the freedom that can only come through Christ. If I have to share my story to watch this kind of redemption work, then I’m willing to keep talking.