Thank you for sharing!

Shame.

It comes in fast and consumes you like a disease. It can be debilitating if we allow it to fester and pick at old wounds.

This was the first way the Enemy attacked me when my marriage started falling apart. I was in my most vulnerable place, so susceptible to hearing the Enemy’s lies and believing them. I was right where he wanted me to be. If he could use my current situation to deliver shame and make this already broken spirit feel worse about herself, he was ready to jump right on that.

The Enemy knows our weak points and how to poke at them. My pride was in my marriage. And I was always so sure that with enough hard work that I would have a wonderful, strong marriage. But no amount of hard work on my part could fix where the Enemy had crawled in and filled with lies and darkness.

Immediately the thoughts started piling in to bring in the shame.

Shame is such a poison. It will prevent you from hearing God and doing what He wants you to do. It will fester and pick at your weaknesses and failures until you hate yourself. Until you’re absolutely miserable with your life, leaving you feeling like you can never do right and can never fix your current situation. Life will just always be hard and you will never be good enough.

My friend, that is all a lie and I want you to know that you have the ability of freeing yourself from those thoughts.

 

I sat in those thoughts for a bit and allowed them to haunt me, make me sick, and fearful to ever show my face again. I wanted to hide this situation because the weight of shame was too heavy.

But I thought of how Satan approached Jesus and tempted him and what Jesus did to combat the Enemy. He used scripture and truth with every attack. Jesus sets such a good example for us in this way.

One by one, I took every thought captive and decided to only give each thought the worth it deserved, replaced it with truth and discarded thoughts that would only pull me down.

“What will your family think of you? They’re going to think you’re such a bad person.”
My family may be disappointed, but I know they love me and if I explain the whole situation, I think they will understand.

“They’re going to say they saw it coming because you were never a good enough Christian.”
I know the truth and I know I have tried my hardest to please God over these years. Have I been perfect? No, but I didn’t cause this just because I may have weaknesses in my faith. God is not punishing me.

“Remember those young girls you worked with and mentored for years? They are going to be disgusted with your life and this might even damage their relationship with God. Because they’ve heard you speak about God and since you’ve failed so much in this way, your words mean nothing.”
Maybe. But if I use this to strengthen my relationship with God and create a better testimony, then I can still be a good example to those girls even though I carry a burden I never thought I’d have to carry.

“How could you fail so much in this way?”
I didn’t fail. The Enemy saw a weakness in my marriage that I didn’t even know was there and attacked it. This isn’t a failure for lack of trying, but a scheme from the evil one himself.

“People are going to assume you didn’t treat your husband correctly and obviously you just weren’t putting in enough effort or praying hard enough. If you were, this wouldn’t be happening.”
They might do this and I can’t control that. People will make their own assumptions of and attach judgements on my situation. But at the end of the day, I care only what God thinks of me and not what others think of me. God knows my story. He knows how hard I tried. And He is the only one that matters.

– – –

Don’t let shame overtake you and your situation. Don’t let the Enemy win in that way. Take every thought captive and replace it with truth.

Is this always easy? NO. This is still a daily thing I have to work through.

Sometimes I let thoughts linger or give them more worth than they deserve. I’ve even had moments where I yell at Satan and his followers to get out of my head and I pray that God helps me sort through these thoughts.

But just remember whose child you are.

 

You have a God who cares about you so much and is crushed to see you entertain these thoughts and belittle your value. Seek Him. Be in His Word so that you can fight these thoughts and shame scripts with truth.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 NIV

 

 

 

Thank you for sharing!