Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Have you ever felt shame? I know I have. In today's podcast, my guests are Velvette Williams, Megan Sinisi, Amber Dozier, myself, and Me, Sherina Donovan. We are so excited to share with you all that God is showing us in the season that we were not designed for shame; we were designed to live in perfection, and because of that, we struggle to deal with the shame of our lives, the shame of our past or present, and the thought of the future join us today as we encourage you as God has encouraged our heart not to live in the shame, but I understand that in his presence, there is no shame. Today, we will be reading Genesis chapters 2 and 3.
Megan's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@MegansSearchForMeaning
0:00 -introduction
2:10 -Story of Shame
5:56 -Megan
8:59- Sherina
11:41 -Velvette
19:54 -Megan
25:38 -Ending
Megan's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@MegansSearchForMeaning
0:00 -introduction
2:10 -Story of Shame
5:56 -Megan
8:59- Sherina
11:41 -Velvette
19:54 -Megan
25:38 -Ending
Creators and Guests
Host
Guest
Guest
What is Healing from Shame?
Come with me as I gather women from different walks and seasons: who love God together to talk about the shame they have experienced, even if we have caused it ourselves or something outside of God's design brought us shame. Shame can be complicated, but together, let us tell you the secrets God has shown to our hearts to overcome the shame from the past to the present and even the future. We will no longer walk in shame, but we will walk with God, knowing his heart for us and that the Father loves us no matter what we're dealing with.
00;00;04;09 - 00;00;32;26
Unknown
Welcome to today's podcast. This is Women in Pursuit. I'm your host, Sherina Donovan. In a world that pulls our attention towards it. Let us be women who chase after the things of God and the things he has for us. Let's find time to sit together and with the father. May this podcast build your community, enhance your life, and build your understanding that you have a father who loves you and he passionately pursues you and your heart.
00;00;32;29 - 00;00;58;18
Unknown
Let's get started for today. Hello! Welcome to our podcast. My name is Sherina. I'm so glad that you're here. Today we're going to be talking about shame. A little about me. I am a stay at home homeschooling mom of five beautiful children. First guest I have today is my friend Megan. She has her own YouTube channel. Her channel's name is Megan's Search for meaning.
00;00;58;24 - 00;01;27;02
Unknown
You should check her out on YouTube. Hi, I'm Megan, a friend of Sherina's. I am a wife, a homeschool mom, and a therapist and this is my favorite topic. So also my next guest is Amber. She is my sister in law and I'm so excited to have her here bring a sister. I am a mother of three, beautiful children that I love so much, a wife and a Jesus lover and follower.
00;01;27;02 - 00;01;52;23
Unknown
I'm happy to be here. I'm so glad that Amber is here today. Thank you for coming, Amber. And lastly, but not least is my bestie. This is Velvette Williams. Hey guys, my name is velvet. I am Sherina's best friend. here with my other friends as well. I am a wife. I've been married for 13 years. I am a mom of three amazing kids.
00;01;52;26 - 00;02;21;04
Unknown
and I'm also a special education teacher. All of my guests today are married. We all have children, and we're all pretty much in that season of life together. I'm so glad that you guys are each here to talk about shame today. So let us dive right in and take a look at God's original design for mankind. In the beginning, God created us in his image, and in that image he created them.
00;02;21;06 - 00;02;43;16
Unknown
And sometimes when we look at those words, we just look at them. It's like, oh, cool, I'm in the image of God. But the image is actually like a reflection when you're looking in that mirror, when you're looking in a mirror and you see yourself, God is saying that when he looks upon you, he sees his son. You are made in the image of God.
00;02;43;18 - 00;03;18;09
Unknown
And in the very beginning, when God created us, he created us to be able to live in that perfection, that life, that garden that he created for us. And he made us to be able to live without shame. Genesis 2:25 says Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. We were designed to be naked and feel no shame talking about the naked of our bodies, necessarily, but naked in the fact that we were completely open to God.
00;03;18;11 - 00;03;45;23
Unknown
There was nothing hidden from him. He saw it all. He knew it all. There was nothing that we felt like we had to hide. The thing about shame in Genesis two, when you look it up in the Strong's Concordance, you'll find out that the definition is to put to shame, to be ashamed, to be disappointed, to feel shame, to act shamefully, or to be disappointed by reason of.
00;03;45;26 - 00;04;16;05
Unknown
And that's just got me really thinking about shame and how I perceive the word shame. Sometimes I think of the word shame, and I think more of a embarrassment, but when they're defining it here, it's more of I've disappointed someone, I've disappointed myself, I've disappointed others. There's some kind of disappointment. And see, when we were designed, we were designed to live authentically and not feel ashamed of the life that we get to live.
00;04;16;08 - 00;04;41;04
Unknown
But because of the fall, because of what happened next, because of the eating of the apple, they felt shame. So we're going to move to to the fall of man. In Genesis three, we hear about Eve and Adam, and those are it's really key to understand what happened in the beginning. And I think those are very important. But for today's topic, I really want to focus on the shame.
00;04;41;07 - 00;05;03;24
Unknown
So we're going to move to verse seven. So Eve and Adam both eat of this apple. They were told not to eat up. And it says in verse seven, then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. When we feel shame, we hide and we cover.
00;05;03;26 - 00;05;24;03
Unknown
And then the next part in the verse eight, then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. We tend to want to hide what is shameful. When we disappoint others, we want to hide it.
00;05;24;10 - 00;05;48;23
Unknown
When we disappoint ourselves, we want to hide it. We try to make excuses for our behaviors and and we try to cover up shame with so many different things. But there have been things that have happened to you, and there have been things that have happened that you might feel that shame. And so today we're really going to focus on the shame that maybe we have from my childhood, things that have happened to us in the past.
00;05;48;25 - 00;06;09;03
Unknown
I just did a YouTube video on this I saw, but I didn't want to watch it just in case because I was like, let me just get this and then I plan on watching it. Yeah. So literally talking about Eve and shame. So shame is like this, at least in this like realm of psychology. Shame is this belief that there's something wrong with ourselves.
00;06;09;03 - 00;06;34;02
Unknown
And I think you see that transition between before or when even Adam sins and to after. Right? Because the only place that shame is not mentioned in the Bible like they had no shame, was in Genesis two. Right? And so then there's the temptation. They fail and they do this. The one thing that they weren't supposed to do.
00;06;34;02 - 00;07;04;20
Unknown
And here they are having shame. And so and I try to use that sanctified imagination because for me, it just helps me identify more with those biblical characters. But so I just like they had this epiphany, you know, of eating this fruit. And then they realized, right, that they're naked. And so they had always been naked there. They had never like, it's not like they were like, oh, my clothes fell off.
00;07;04;20 - 00;07;27;08
Unknown
Like they had always been naked. This is the state they had always been in. But now they have this belief about that there's something wrong with them that they that they internally like they're broken and they can't be fixed. Right. And so you see that they go and they try to make their own coverings. They go and they hide and all of these things and they can't fix it.
00;07;27;10 - 00;07;55;19
Unknown
The only one who can fix it is God. And you see that happen in Genesis three. And then obviously, the Bible is this progression of God reconciling us back to him. And so shame is this belief that there's something inherently wrong with us, no matter what it is. And we can go around the table and talk about like I, you know, have shame about how I look or my weight or the way that I mother or me being, you know, the type of therapist that I am.
00;07;55;19 - 00;08;19;01
Unknown
And like, we could all have those things. We all have probably several things that we very much like. I have a lot of shame. I feel like I'm broken in that area, and I think that that is what the fall has done. And for me personally, like, the world is so broken and evil after the fall and it just continues to spiral downward.
00;08;19;04 - 00;08;52;15
Unknown
But I feel like the idea of shame, of us believing that we are inherently broken, instead of believing that we are created in the image of God. That that is the worst part of the fall, because that belief is what leads to this evil, right? Like, if I believe that I'm broken and I feel that you're not broken in that area, like that's going to lead me to be like jealous and bitter and anger and like all of these things, which affects our relationship and, you know, and that leads me to be sad and like, it can make me to make choices that, like, hurt other people.
00;08;52;15 - 00;09;14;16
Unknown
And it just is a continual downward spiral that you see in all of human history. And it's really, really sad. It really is. And so I think for me, it brought me to a place to realize that there are things in my life that I understand that have happened to me, but necessarily it wasn't always God's design. And because it's outside of God's design, it's caused shame and it's caused hurt.
00;09;14;18 - 00;09;42;23
Unknown
And I've tried to cover that hurt by, eating. I try to cover that hurt by being the best friend that I possibly can, or be an overachiever or anything to try to cover my shame and the lack that I have. And so I wanted to share my story with you guys today about my dad. I've had three dads, and I realized recently that not one of them have I ever called dad because I never had that relationship.
00;09;42;23 - 00;10;01;17
Unknown
And and so I was sharing that story with somebody and they said, well, kind of have I grief through that or anything like that? I was like, well, I don't know. I understand that it happened and and why's Dawn said, well, just because you understand it doesn't mean you've healed from it. And I thought about that and I was like, that's right.
00;10;01;17 - 00;10;25;02
Unknown
It is true. Just because I understand that I didn't have a dad there he was. He was absent. And it was a good thing. It was a it was a good thing that this man was not in my life. It doesn't mean that there weren't scars and there's this pain there. And my shame comes from that absence of him and not realizing that there's been years of overcompensating because of that one person not being in my life.
00;10;25;05 - 00;10;57;11
Unknown
And so that's why I felt like I wanted to talk about healing today, as I'm in that place of healing with the Lord and realizing that it's okay that I'm hurt in that area because it wasn't God's design, and it's okay to look back and say to it, that's not right, and then to move forward in the fact that but I have a Heavenly Father who always makes it right, and I just need to keep running to him and not on my I call my vices my my eating or any other addictions that I have, especially eating.
00;10;57;13 - 00;11;21;24
Unknown
I especially as I'm going through this new healing with about my dad, I realize I've been eating a lot more, right? Because it's my self-soothing way of handling the thing that I don't want to handle. And so I've got to learn how to give it to God. But there's so much grace by God just going, it's okay, because I understand that you're eating that taco because you're dealing with this and you don't want to deal with that.
00;11;21;24 - 00;11;40;17
Unknown
So you eat a taco and there's not like, oh, there's shame. But I feel shameful because I know what I'm doing, but I know there's so much grace and mercy, and so I'm trying my best to constantly take that to the Lord. And even though I am going to my vices sometimes, but the times I'm not giving myself that grace and mercy that I didn't.
00;11;40;19 - 00;12;04;13
Unknown
Yeah. So last year I, I fell and dislocate and broke my ankle and had to have surgery. And so that process of healing, I was in the early stages of a healing. I was challenged by you to, to like, ask the questions like, in the physical, is anything going on in the spiritual through that healing process?
00;12;04;13 - 00;12;25;21
Unknown
You know, you know, you have surgery, you know, you need medication. the wound, you know, the wound is open or it's covered. You know, you have the process of having a splint, having it, casted on. In my case, I had a boot for quite a while. And then you go to physical therapy, you know, and then you're learning how to walk again, you know, without the boot.
00;12;25;23 - 00;12;45;24
Unknown
and then I still have barely ran, maybe ran for, like, to, like, 1 or 2 minutes. I've, I got a four point piece on the treadmill that was really showing me that I guess I did heal from that injury. Like in my like you can you can't see the wound I have. I mean, I have a scar, but you walk, you know, I have a little bit of a limp.
00;12;45;24 - 00;13;03;27
Unknown
And I kind of think of that as in my in my healing journey. I don't want to say like I'm healed from, you know, the past and the hurts. You know, that really began in childhood, which I think we can equally all say here at this table, which is, quite interesting that we've all had a lot of childhood trauma.
00;13;04;00 - 00;13;27;25
Unknown
And so, and not dad's in our lives, you know, like, I think we've all, we all here have experienced absent fathers. And so throughout this past year, it's really opened my, my mind and my heart to like the healing process can be a lot like wounds, like actual physical injuries. And there's different stages of injuries. You know, there's of a one injury, a level two injury, level three.
00;13;27;25 - 00;13;45;10
Unknown
Right. Anything from a papercut to, you know, like a slicer to a really hard injury where you need, you know, it's like all jagged, you know, and it needs a little bit of bandaging. And there's like, things that might need surgery or it might be, you know, from the inside out. And so there's a lot that I've been dealing with.
00;13;45;10 - 00;14;16;20
Unknown
And it caused me to kind of be alone. Like I had a surgery the year before. Then I had the stuff going on with my foot and, it's forced me to come to grips with my childhood trauma. You know, stuff that I went through as a kid and, how it's affected me, like, like the things that you were saying, you know, eating my marriage, just relationships, having dinner with my dad, or, you know, and, like, a lot, even seeing where my mom shame was, you know, and how that affected me, especially even after being a believer.
00;14;16;20 - 00;14;38;02
Unknown
You know, I became a Christian my, in my early teens. But in my early 20s, I was wild and out because I think those wounds I started to I started to I feel like I'm all over the place, but I feel like I started to, to realize things as you get older, some things that happened. So anyways, this past year, I just been thinking, like, what?
00;14;38;02 - 00;15;01;23
Unknown
What kind of wound is this childhood trauma? Like? It's a really deep. It's a really internal, really deep, you know, wound that needs surgery. And, I don't that sometimes people will say, oh, you have a wound and it's healed. It won't. You know, some emotionally people say it might not hurt to talk about it as much or like the pain will go away, but, many times my ankle was hurt out of nowhere.
00;15;01;24 - 00;15;21;03
Unknown
The weather might affect my my foot. in my. It's a little bit weird, and, I might still limp. And so I think about my past, you know, like some hurts that happened, like, with with me not having my dad. A lot of chaos happened where my mom isolated us from our biological father because of her shame and stuff she was going through.
00;15;21;03 - 00;15;51;14
Unknown
So I can talk about it. I can I feel like I'm healed from a lot of my broken relationships with, with my mom and not having my dad. Like, I can talk about it, but I feel like, I am still healing. Like the word I'm not healed. altogether. Because some things remind me, like, I can, like, don't be now that I, as an adult, you know, watching my husband with with our kids and being a dad or, you know, those kind of things I can see, like some things are reminders.
00;15;51;14 - 00;16;14;03
Unknown
So I think about the wound that the healing process of wounds in the body, there's just different stages. And sometimes I get itchy and, you know, sometimes, reminder of something might, you know, really get at me. But ultimately, I know that that Christ sees me. I know that he knows my broken areas, and he is the ultimate healer.
00;16;14;03 - 00;16;34;01
Unknown
And I it still draws me when I, when I have those itchiness or when I have those limps or when I have that aching pain, of reminders of some things in my past. it forces me to go to him, you know, and during my healing journey, you know, people are with physically with my ankle, you know, families, people are busy and stuff.
00;16;34;01 - 00;16;57;03
Unknown
And so it really the those of long time, those sleeping on the couch for a month, you know, at those times at night by myself, they really force me to really push me to lean into to the Lord more and to come to him with all these different other broken areas, but to kind of look at things, look at life, that are wounds can be in different in different stages.
00;16;57;03 - 00;17;10;18
Unknown
It can be a stage one wound and two wound, you know, like some of you might have seen me. Okay. That's a I might need to heal from that. It might be a stage one wound to let me be a papercut. But there's other things that need to be processed and the pain still might be there at times.
00;17;10;18 - 00;17;36;24
Unknown
It might not be there every day. But, let's continuing, of us drawing near to to God over and over again, you know, through the different wounds, but just trying to reevaluate, try to see my life or my hurts in those ways, you know, like, even, like about my mom. You know, I look back, like, okay, I can see why she might have done x, y, and Z, you know, she wasn't doing it to purposely hurt me.
00;17;37;01 - 00;17;57;21
Unknown
She wasn't pulling me away from my dad to say, velvet, when you grow up, you're going to have all this pains and aches and you're going to miss your dad issues. And doing it to, like, be hurtful. She was going to her own shame, her own hurts, and like just thinking about the story of Hagar. Hagar, so when she saw when she saw the Lord, like the Kristoff and he.
00;17;57;21 - 00;18;21;16
Unknown
Right, like she she could see him and he saw her. That's what she said. Elroy. Right. Like the God who sees. And so God reminds me to kind of, like, look back into my childhood and my wounds and to see, see my family or see my the people who might have hurt me in the long run, to see them like how he sees them or to see them like sometimes they really don't mean to.
00;18;21;16 - 00;18;45;11
Unknown
It doesn't mean that's right or anything, but that even the things I've done, I've done things are not meant to hurt. People are not meant to. Like I wasn't doing it intentionally. so resistance showed me a lot that he sees me. He sees me when I'm by myself. He sees me when I'm trying to go through all this processing of my past and my hurts, and that I'm a lot of my stuff that I.
00;18;45;13 - 00;19;09;11
Unknown
Those deep wounds have kind of triggered for my childhood, but I'm just now starting to realize, because growing up, being so busy with life and school and being a kid and a teenager, like I'm just starting to do all that thing. A lot of adults now, the topic is more open to talk about childhood trauma, but then just being gentle with myself and allowing to feel that pain, you know, because that's how you have to have pain with the wounds.
00;19;09;11 - 00;19;31;21
Unknown
You have to work through the pains of walking again, you know, like my broken ankle, you know? But, it's okay to have that pain. It sucks, but that it's. I'm. I'm still healing in my ankle. I'm still healing from past traumas. What a great analogy that God gave you with your ankle. And just being even even able to see that wound still.
00;19;31;23 - 00;19;53;22
Unknown
And so, you know, it's there, you're reminded of it. But that continuously healing that God is doing. Megan said, one time about the things that that happened in your life and you were talking about how you know that it's not going to be healed on this side, but it will be held on another side. We share a little bit about that.
00;19;53;24 - 00;20;29;24
Unknown
I'm trying to remember when he died, when he told you that, but yeah, I think that I have a lot of different thoughts going through my head, but I think that especially in like American Christian society, we have this belief that like as Christians, if we are not like, joyful every single day and like, like obnoxiously joyful, like, you know, where you're dancing and singing for the Lord and you're like in your kitchen having a dance.
00;20;29;24 - 00;20;54;18
Unknown
Like, if you're not feeling that every day, like there's something wrong. And I think that even in American society we see that. Right. Like if, if we're just going through the mundane grind of life, like I'm getting my kids that prayer and getting them ready for the day, and I had to tell them 15 times to brush their teeth and like, then we go into our things and they're not listening to me and all of these things, right?
00;20;54;18 - 00;21;20;12
Unknown
Like we can be like, well, life sucks, so I must be depressed or I must be anxious because I'm not having this constant like feeling of endorphin rush. And I think like, that is not how life this side of the fall works. Maybe that's how it was for Adam and Eve before the fall, and it was just this constant dopamine like hit all the time.
00;21;20;15 - 00;21;43;25
Unknown
But that's not how it is on this side. And if if we're going through a process of healing, I think that there it's actually two pieces, right? Like it's healing like like velvet was saying like, you know, having the surgery, doing the physical therapy, walking on the ankle, like strengthening and then like getting to a place where you don't need the boot.
00;21;43;25 - 00;22;08;11
Unknown
You can live a pretty normal life. I'm using quotes like pretty normal, right? Like but there's also a grieving that has to happen, right? Like your love of dance. Like there's probably a huge grieving there of like, I can't dance the way that I used to or that I want to because of my ankle. Right. And like so there's a lot of emotion that comes up with that.
00;22;08;11 - 00;22;26;07
Unknown
Grief is like, well, now I'm mad and now I'm sad. Now I'm like all of these things. And a lot of times do you think, well, then I must not be healed. Like if we get triggered with that emotion, like I must not be healed because all of this stuff's coming up. Maybe, maybe there's still a healing that needs to happen.
00;22;26;07 - 00;22;46;19
Unknown
But I think there's also like a grieving. Like you can be healed, like you've accepted it. It's a part of your life. And and this is what happened. We don't have time travel. We can't go back. I can't go back and change. Like the situation with my parents or my dad or the things that happened to me. I can't go back and change that.
00;22;46;19 - 00;23;06;19
Unknown
Right? So I've substance about it. But there is definitely a grieving that I'm still doing of like, man, I wish, I wish that I had that relationship with my dad. I wish I had that relationship with my mom. I wish that things were different and, you know, grieving and allowing myself to be sad or even angry about that.
00;23;06;19 - 00;23;32;11
Unknown
And processing those feelings gets you to a place of, okay, now I have a little bit more peace because when we talk about salvation, like when you look up the word salvation in the New Testament, in the Greek, it and like salvation and sanctification, it really implies like this, like restoration that like God wants us to be whole.
00;23;32;11 - 00;23;56;26
Unknown
Like that's what that's what coming to Jesus and being a follower. Jesus is, is like, not just cool. I get eternal life and I get to be like in the quote unquote good place, like when I die, right? Like, okay, that is really great. But like, it's so much more like the Bible from Genesis three and on is about restoration and reconciliation back to God.
00;23;56;26 - 00;24;32;16
Unknown
And so our salvation, that's what it's implying, is that our relationship with the Lord and Jesus will restore us to what God's original design is. And for me personally, back to your original question. Like, there are definitely some things that I'm going to continue grieving until I get to the other side of eternity. Like that. Grief will always be there, and I have the personal belief that grief is the hardest thing humans will walk through, because we were not designed to walk through grief, because we were not designed to have loss, right?
00;24;32;16 - 00;24;52;28
Unknown
Like we weren't designed to lose anything. We weren't designed to experience death. And so when we grieve and we're walking through that, right, like there has for me as a therapist, and also just the way that I think, like I have to come to a place of acceptance, like I'm going to grieve this until I am in the arms of Jesus.
00;24;53;00 - 00;25;11;23
Unknown
And then that's when my restoration and my reconciliation will be healed, like, completely. Right? Like there are no tears in heaven. There's no grief. There's no sadness. Like that's where it will all finally be healed. And so it's not that the Lord doesn't want us to be healed. It's not that he's not walking us through that healing and restoration.
00;25;11;26 - 00;25;44;12
Unknown
It's just the reality of like, we live in a really broken world, and it's just the reality of it's not going to be fixed until our in his arms. And that's my personal opinion. I'm not saying that's like theological doctrine. So please don't like comment on the podcast that I'm like totally wrong. It's totally Megan's personal opinion. So whatever shame you're dealing with today, we pray that you would know you weren't designed to deal with shame.
00;25;44;14 - 00;26;11;23
Unknown
So bring your shame to God. Don't hide from him. Bring it to him. He wants to meet with you in the coolness of the day in the garden. He wants to soothe your soul. This is just part one. We hope that you enjoyed it. And until next time when you get to hear from Amber Dozier and the rest of us, we can't wait to share what God is doing to restore the shame in our lives.
00;26;11;25 - 00;26;18;14
Unknown
And that's all we have for today. And until next time, may God keep you safe until we meet again. Bye.