1 Corinthians 13:5, Genesis 45:1-15, John 8:1-11, John 21:15-19, Luke 15:11-32, Isaiah 49:16, Romans 8:1
Love keeps no record of wrongs. We keep to-do lists so we don’t forget We check them twice We carry them in our pockets Holding on to the pain The disappointment The failure Re-viewing the wrong Poi...
Luke 4:21-30, Mark 6:1-6, Matthew 5:44, Colossians 3:12-13, James 4:11, 1 Peter 2:1, Romans 12:10
Contempt is so painful To be dismissed, disregarded Questioning instead of dignity Accusation instead of personhood I have felt its sting and hollowness As have you, my Jesus Help me hear the needed ...
It’s wrong to shame someone!” the student asserted, with clear pain in her eyes. Just to be clear, I hadn’t done anything, but she seemed to be talking about some personal experience. “Is it always wr...
It’s wrong to shame someone!” the student asserted, with clear pain in her eyes. Just to be clear, I hadn’t done anything, but she seemed to be talking about some personal experience. “Is it always wr...
Joseph’s brothers, meaning to harm him, sold him into Egypt, but in reality God sent him there so that he could save Jacob’s family and many others from death by starvation Robert E. Longacre, J...
I believe that there is a profound difference between shame and guilt. I believe that guilt is adaptive and helpful – it’s holding something we’ve done or failed to do up against our values and feelin...
Why is shame so painful? In this short excerpt, professor and philosopher Gregg Ten Elsof provides a helpful insight: The experience of shame always involves the sense of diminished social standin...
I believe that there is a profound difference between shame and guilt. I believe that guilt is adaptive and helpful – it’s holding something we’ve done or failed to do up against our values and feelin...
It’s a word we do not often use in daily conversation, book groups, or church pulpits, but shame is something we all experience. It’s the feeling that we have missed the mark according to our own stan...
Shame makes its way into our stories at an early age. So early, in fact, that we usually have no conscious memory of our initial encounters with it. This can take place as early as fifteen to eighteen...
My God, my God, please don’t forsake me. I confess that I feel so far from you; your voice is almost out of earshot. I feel like I’m facing life all on my own, because I’ve chosen to do it my way. A...
While exploring an experience of deep guilt and shame with her spiritual director, the author of Madeleine L’Engle, wrote One time I was talking to Canon Tallis, who is my spiritual director as we...
Another feature of shame’s presentation is that of hiding. Whether it is the involution into the silence of our own minds or the literal turning away from someone with a downcast facial expression wit...
Shame is not just a consequence of something our first parents did in the Garden of Eden. It is the emotional weapon that evil uses to (1) corrupt our relationships with God and each other, and (2) di...
Genesis 3:7-8, Proverbs 28:13, 1 John 1:7-9, James 5:16, Galatians 6:1-2
Shame has two conflicting instincts. It needs to isolate and hide, and it needs a community in which to be transparent. Hiding, of course, usually wins. It is the easier and more natural of the two. B...
I sometimes think that shame, mere awkward, senseless shame, does as much towards preventing good acts and straightforward happiness as any of our vices can do.
I was standing in line in a crowded public rest room engaged in one of my favorite hobbies, people watching, when I observed a brief interaction between a mother and daughter. Mother looked harried an...
One of the most hopeful and gratifying conclusions to come out of our 12 years of research on shame and guilt is that that notion of morality is wrong. Dead wrong. You don't have to feel really ba...
Gracious God, we are called to be a joyful people, giving thanks for You and Your good gifts. There are times, however, when sin and sorrow grow, pushing joy to the side. We lose sight of Your grace, ...
Several years ago, when I was about to speak in a seminary chapel, the seminary’s president introduced me and noted that my sons were with me in the front row. He announced each of their names and ask...
Psalm 51:1-2, Luke 23:39-43, Luke 15:11-32, Ephesians 2:4-5, Romans 5:8, Isaiah 53:5
Leader: Blessed Lord Jesus, before your cross I kneel and see the heinousness of my sin, my iniquity that caused you to be made a curse, the evil that provokes divine wrath. All: Show me the enormit...
Sometimes moments of forgiveness and friendship come from unexpected places. In 2018, the comedian Pete Davidson appeared on the “Weekend Update” segment of Saturday Night Live (SNL). Davidson made a ...
Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive, half wishing they were dead to save the shame. The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow; They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats, and ...
Isaiah 53:5, Romans 5:8, John 14:27, 1 John 1:9, Colossians 1:13-14
Hear the good news: For the joy set before him, Jesus Christ endured the shame of the cross, taking all our weakness and failure. Jesus went to the cross for the joy of having you as part of God’s Kin...
Micah 7:19, Philippians 3:13-14, Luke 9:62, Matthew 10:37-39, 2 Corinthians 5:17
Sister Joan Chittister writes about regret in the context of aging, though I think most of us can identify with this personification of Mr. R.: Regret…comes upon us one day dressed up like wisdom, l...
All addictions begin in shame. They don’t begin with troubling behavior—a binge on porn, a night of overdrinking–but with a sense of lack or limitation. An addict may be loved deeply, but sense of lac...