Fathers Love Heals Shame

Fathers Love Heals Shame and Brings Freedom to the Places of Pain in our Hearts

Joey lived in my neighborhood and we rode the school bus together each day. He was not a particularly shy kid yet he was continually picked on. One day, as we got off the bus several kids were spitting on him and laughing. I, myself, could not be that mean and actually felt sorry for him, but I did not want to get involved. So I said and did nothing.

Feeling Shame

Over many years I never forgot that event. How must it feel to be picked on like that throughout your childhood? I can only imagine the feelings of shame and rejection Joey felt. Even the boys who committed the cruelty had to have experienced some shame and hardness of heart to act like that. These things — shame, rejection, hard-heartedness — do not typically just go away. They can create pockets of un-forgiveness that we are only slightly aware of many years later and yet they affect us throughout our lives. Events like this can also move us to embrace core lies such as we are inadequate or helpless.

Most of us have received treatment like this, have given it, or at least witnessed it. I ministered to a man whose mother had left and he was being raised by his father.  There was a time as a teenager he overheard his dad on the phone say to someone, “I hope one day I’ll have a son, because this one I have is good for nothing.”

Our Own Pain

Sometimes when we think of past events like this we have that slight cringing feeling or a tight fist in our chest. These signs may indicate they are unresolved and there’s still some hurt. God can bring us to the place where we can think about any past event with total peace, compassion for the ones who were hurtful, and even a sense of God’s presence in place of the pain because He has brought healing.

So how do we receive this type of healing? Here are some steps to consider.

Three requirements for healing:

1)   You must hurt enough that you have no choice but to change.

2)   You must learn enough that you have hope for change.

3)   You must receive enough unconditional love that you are motivated towards change.

If you’re in enough pain, you’ll be willing to do something about it no matter the cost. Then you will take the time and effort to look into your heart, into the Word, and even into the possibility of a counselor or prayer minister to help you learn what’s necessary to move forward in your healing. And then you need to be able to rest in Father’s love enough to work through whatever issues that may be there without fear.

Let us, the Body of Christ, become healed enough to reach out to the “Joeys” of this world full of pain and express love instead of shame and rejection to them.