God with us - Week 15: Romans 5:8
I seem to have got myself addicted to another TV series. I can generally show a fair amount of self-control and resist the "just one more" trap, but this week I've failed!
What's the show, I hear you ask?
'Last Tango in Halifax!'
I don't usually watch stuff like this, I'm more of an 'Unforgotten' crime drama type person, but for some reason, this series has me hooked. No spoilers, but it's about two people in their seventies, Celia and Alan, who reconnect after over fifty years, fall in love, and get married. It's all very romantic, which is probably why I've never bothered watching it before!
The first few episodes were happy enough as the scene was set, and then I started to discover more about the background of these characters and their families. There was betrayal, deceit, and at times downright stupidity.
In one episode, the two grown-up daughters met and had a little too much to drink, well a lot too much actually! The laughter quickly turned to tears as Gillian shared her darkest secret (again, no spoilers). As she spoke, you could feel the deep sense of shame she carried due to her actions. She cycled around from taking the blame for what happened to justifying her behaviour all the while trying to gauge Caroline's reaction.
Would she be understood, or would she be rejected?
When Gillian woke the following morning, you could see the fear in her eyes as her sober mind recognised that she could never take back what she had done or that she'd shared it with someone else.
If you've managed to get through life having never said, done, or thought anything that has made you feel like Gillian at that moment, then I'm genuinely envious.
Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we feel shame, the camera is zoomed in tight, and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.
Brene Brown
It's hard to look at those moments where we have fallen so short of the best of who we are, or more importantly, the best of who God wants us to be. It may have been something we said, something we did, even something we thought that zoomed in and highlighted the worst side of us in glorious Technicolor. Whether other people witnessed it or not is irrelevant, as we remember every detail of what happened. I still struggle with this, recalling the moments I have sinned. I nearly wrote, "made mistakes," but let's call it what it is. I know I'm forgiven, but the shame creeps in, reminding me where I went wrong, whispering my faults over and over again.
Can you connect with that feeling?
It's not pleasant, I know.
In fact, it's pretty unpleasant.
And yet, it was in that moment Christ died for us. Not when we were getting it all right, saying Holy things and doing God's work, but at our most broken, filled with sin and shame.
"But Christ proved God's passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly!"
Romans 5:8
That's how much He loves us.
God is with us in the moments when we make poor choices, when we feel lost or have moved far away from Him. In our darkest moments He reminds us just how deeply loved we are.
Kay Moorby
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