Who told you?

Kids are some of the funniest people I know. Every single day I have a conversation with a kid at work or at church and I end up laughing with them about something. This may be because I am a big kid and tend to get along with them as if I were their age. Kids can provide some of the most wonderful blessings in your life as they grow up. One reason that they are so funny is that they are so inquisitive, and they are always learning. Sometimes they are learning a new sport, new words, new jokes, or even new things that they might be good at. It is especially rewarding when you are able to see them enjoy something new for the first time, them watching their first NBA game, or them scoring their first goal, or making their first good grade on a test. It is especially rewarding when they let you in on their excitement; running to you not being able to contain the joy of their good news. However, one of the most heartbreaking things to watch is a when a child learns about shame. As we grow up, or at least as I have grown up, I have ignored the shame that has existed. It has become something to cope with and not something that needs to be taken away. We learn cover it up. We put calluses around it so that we do not have to deal with it and we conjure feeble attempts to protect ourselves against it. In other cases we are overtaken by our shame and we compensate for our shame by indulging ourselves in vices in order to numb the shame we experience. We are familiar with guilt, with right and wrong. Sometimes shame comes from this, but shame is different in that it can come from something else. It can come from a lie someone else has told us, or one we have told ourselves. Shame puts us in bondage, limits us, and inhibits us from becoming our full selves. One story in particular from working with kids plays itself out when I think of this. Every little girl wears their pretty little dress that their mother picks out for them. They are so excited because that day they are beautiful. However, sometime during that day they are lied to and I have found them in a corner hiding. Crying. I go up to them to make sure that they are ok; to make sure they are not hurt. My first thought is that they fell down and scraped their knee or that someone has hit them or pushed them down. Often it is far worse, they have learned about shame. They have been fed a lie, that they are not beautiful, that they are ugly, plain, dirty, stupid, rejected. That she is not loved, that she is somehow repulsive, that she is unwanted. It is in those moments that I find myself at a loss for words. It is at these moments that I am let in on their pain. What can I say? Someone has just taught this young girl shame. We all have known shame, the feeling of being reproachful and unwanted, rejected. Who told us? Who told you that you are unlovable, not beautiful? Who told you that you are not masculine enough, that you cry too much? Who told you that you can never be the woman your sister was, that are not girlie enough, or that you are too girlie? Who told you that you would never be wanted or desired by another? Who told you that you could never have dreams, that you are a failure? Who told you that you would never amount to anything? Who told you that you are not good enough for first class, that you are dirty, that you are ugly? Who told you about shame? Who told you…? God asks this question to His first children after they were lied to. Adam and Eve ate the fruit and ran in hopes to flee from the face of God and embrace the sepulcher of shame. They realized that they were naked. When God found them the first thing that he said was not condescending, or condemning. It was a question. Who told you that you were naked? At that moment shame entered into humanity and stole our affirmation from our Creator. It stole our value and made us feel reproachful, unlovable. We now need someone to take our shame. We need someone to give us a new identity, to tell us a greater truth about ourselves than we have been told so far. We need a Shame Thief. One who has come to steal back shame and its vices. One who will absorb our reproachfulness in order that we might have acceptance, value. Someone to tell us we are loved. If I were ready for when this little girl let me in on her shame I would ask her, who told you? I would tell them that someone has lied to them. That the lie that they were told is not the truth they should believe. I would tell them of one who accepts them, who loves them. I would tell them that someone has come to take their shame, and has told them that they are beautiful.