The enemy uses shame to silence us from sharing our story

Without exception, with human clockwork, undermined are our stories of victory in the Lord.

Two lies are told.

Both lies tear away at our worth.

These lies are propagated through the opportunity we have of sharing our stories of abuse and/or recovery.

THE MINIMISING LIE AND THE MAXIMISING LIE

The first lie is that our story of abuse or recovery isn’t scathing, dramatic, transformative, or even interesting enough. The second lie is its opposite; that our story is too big, too shameful, to even be told. The first is the minimising lie; where we doubt our position in procuring attention; we don’t feel our story is worthy of great attention. The second is the maximising lie; where the enemy fills us with fear for what people will think! Both lies hit us in the heart of our worth.

THE MINIMISING LIE WITHIN RECOVERY

When we take warrant of this lie, we hardly feel worthy of ‘special’ attention, when our Lord warrants special attention for anyone who’s pressed hard in on Him for their hope and destiny.

See the lie? He who made a way for us to be transformed, to defy humanity’s doubting that we could ever change, has wrought changes in us, despite us, and all glory is due to God.

To undermine such work is blasphemy of the worst kind, but when we take stock of the enemy’s whispering we partake because we sense we’re not worthy of such an impartation of healing grace. Well, if we aren’t, nobody is.

This lie is particularly prevalent in Christians who were brought up safe within the church. No incredible sinner’s-rags-to-spiritual-riches story do they possess, but that is not to say their story is any less remarkable! God has touched them in a unique way.

THE MINIMISING LIE WITHIN ABUSE

“Your story of abuse is hardly worth telling; it’s nothing like others have suffered,” we might hear our enemy accuse. The truth is, as sin is sin, abuse is abuse.

I know of people who have experienced both sexual abuse and spiritual abuse; neither is palatable, though we may fall for the lie that sexual abuse is worse. In some degrees it may be — it’s different to spiritual abuse, that’s all — but that’s hardly the point. Those people who have experienced both know that both are products of evil. Both are equally unacceptable. And we would all say that some abuses — abuses of children, for just one instance — are more reprehensible than others, but that’s not to say any abuse is acceptable.

Your story of abuse is just as worthy as anyone else’s is.

THE MAXIMISING LIE WITHIN RECOVERY

“You’ve offended God, and the sensitivities of the superior humanity above you, that much that you ought to remain silent; God has been too good to you, and you and He know it.” A LIE! A BUNCH OF LIES!

Of course you haven’t offended God — only to the extent that everyone else has. But in Christ, like everyone else, you’re a new creation. Of course there’s no human being above you, or below you — just a common humanity. God has not been ‘too good’ to any of us, unless He’s been too good to all of us; and that’s the truth in Christ.

The maximising lie has us doubting whether we have any right to tell what the enemy would call our disgusting story. The enemy would denounce us for our compunction in doing just that.

Whatever our recovery story is, it is for God’s glory that we tell of it; not so people would see how brilliant we were, but so they may see what God has done that we could not do, in and for ourselves.

THE MAXIMISING LIE WITHIN ABUSE

Oh the shame we may not be able to face, that which the enemy says, “What you suffered is too shameful to share; do you want to trigger others, or procure their pity, or seek an attention you’re unworthy of?” What a scoundrel our enemy is!

Taking a direct path to shame, keeping us in a holding pattern of guilt, paralysing our sense for justice, the enemy is the lord of confusion.

It is for God’s glory that we find our voice, and trust safe and wise people with the worst of our story. We find an incredible and an unprecedented validation in this.

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Our stories have intrinsic importance and worth. Not for ourselves alone. It’s for God’s glory that we share and do not remain silent. Shame was reconciled once for all time at the cross. And we need to be regularly reminded that we’re free!

Photo by jonathan Ford on Unsplash