“By the look on her face, he sensed her wrestling with shame and he knew shame too well. Shame can be a prison, crueler than the grave at times.”

–Colt Bradford, Murders on Cripple Creek: Reckoning

I am knee deep in finishing my sequel and editing it. During this week’s reflection that quote entered my mind. Shame is either a prison of our own making or of others making. Either way, living with it and it going unchecked for too long wreaks havoc on our daily lives.

Sometimes life is extremely heavy and weighs us on so deeply that we are unsure how the water can rise higher when it’s already at our chest. Yet somehow it does. It floods as it comes up to our shoulders while we grapple with situations that continue to worsen. Shame has a way of drawing out the worst of us during that time as we turn over things we’ve done or others have thrust upon us.

I deal with shame quite a bit especially as a divorced woman and a single mother. I kept thinking as the years have passed since I left my marriage, the shame of it would alleviate in the circumstances around me. Yet it continues to grow, submerging me in the shame others thrust upon me. It follows me around my neighborhood and into the bars on White Oak. It clings to me on Hinge and Bumble and sits next to me in the empty pew at church each Sunday. Whether or not anyone admits they shame me for my past choices or fail to include me because of it, most of the time it is common place.

I have no mom friends, absolutely none. My neighbor who was a single mom for five years sat on the doorstep of her home with me during the wind storm while we both had no power and told me why. Because hot mom’s that are single are pariahs. It’s like I have leprosy and nobody should get close. At first, I just sat with her words and let them stream through my circumstances the last few years at my son’s school, at daycare, at church, and in the neighborhood. Suddenly, shame rose above my head and engulfed me. It was completely disorienting to feel as though I’m tolerated but in so many ways rejected.

Shame like that is powerful. It can take over in those moments of weakness when the world’s words are waves that whip against you in a storm. This revelation to me just came about by another who gone before me and practically sat in my very shoes as a single mother, I had to ask myself… will I allow the shame to change me? Or will I trust that God’s plan is larger and bigger than the stigma I live with because of my own choices?

I think we all look back on the intricate detail of God’s weaving of our lives and have shame. But then we also have ripple effects that we will never outrun. I will never outrun my divorce. It’s a part of my story. It’s the pain of loss coupled with the shame of my own choices. Now I live with the shame others pile on top of that.

I sat with shame this morning as I allowed myself to cry to my Creator, my God, the Lord Almighty, I thought of the storm in Acts 27.

“When the sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved.” – Acts 27:20

There it is in God’s word that since the centurion captaining the ship didn’t listen to Paul, the 276 men of the crew would lose their lives. They had no hope. That is where true shame is bred. Shame is driven by hopelessness – that nothing would save the situation and hope is gone. At the end of the story, the crew are saved as they ran aground but the ship has shattered to pieces.

So in my reflection this morning, I had to accept that some choices aren’t reversible. Sometimes the ship we are on must shatter for us to live and be saved. That is Jesus’s business – saving us. He will tear everything apart to do so if he must – through our disobedience and then our obedience – through our humility and through our pride. Because when Jesus shatters the “ships” we so desperately cling to in the hopes that will save us, that is when he calms the storm and he guides us to shore.

“He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.” –Psalms 107:29

I pray today as you go to brunch, run errands, shop, take your children to a birthday party, sit on a beach on vacation, that the shame of life doesn’t overwhelm you. If you’re living in that shame or allowing the betrayal of others or their opinions to cover you in shame, remember Jesus stills the storm. That even if the ship shatters, God will save you. I pray that God reveals that to you today and you go about your day with the reassurance that when God saves, the people around you are saved too. That when it feels as though the sun and stars aren’t shining and the darkness is upon you, that God will guide you to His haven.