Defining the Pain of Shame

Everybody experiences shame...at some level.  We may not be in touch with it. But it's there. 

The Bible is right. Somewhere... somehow... something went seriously wrong. We lost our way and fell short of what we were created to be.

None of us are perfect, yet... we long for perfection. When we miss the mark, it feels bad. For some it's a fleeting twinge of pain that comes on occasion. For other's it's a stabbing pain that stalks them daily.

That's shame.

Shame is a sense of worthlessness, a sense of being defective. Someone described it to me once as being "damaged goods"... like you are a dropped product in a store and so you get removed from the shelf and tossed in the back, waiting to be thrown out. You've lost your value. And because of that you have this overriding sense of not belonging, not fitting in.

Shame also involves the fear of exposure. YOU know that you are defective but the game of life is to keep other people from knowing it. It's bad enough to BE flawed, but it's doubly bad to have the world gawking at your flaws, either shaking their head in derision or laughing at your futility.

Shame causes you to live in a fear of rejection. If you are flawed and don't fit in, then it's only natural that when you are exposed that you will be rejected. Who wants to associate with a loser?

It's no wonder that shames causes so much pain.

Inherent to shame are the lies we believe. Where there are no lies there is no shame. It's the lies of shame that cause us to leap from the idea of "damaged" to "worthless" or from "flawed" to "forgettable". That's where it's so important to find a source outside of ourselves that defines our worth. If we return to the God that created us we'll find that he's not there to condemn us but give us the value that he always intended for us to have. That's where healing begins.

Read a sample of the book here.  

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Video Intro to Healing the Hurts of Your Past

Cross Point Publishing and I will be working to offer chapter by chapter vignettes of Healing the Hurts of Your Past. Here is a simple overview of the book itself...train whistle and all!

What is Theophostic Prayer Ministry (TPM)?

In my book I make a brief reference to Theophostic Prayer Ministry (TPM). Put simply, it is one of many forms of prayer for inner healing of emotional wounds.

A little background as it relates to me. About twelve years ago I was doing a lot of counseling at church and getting pretty frustrated. It didn't matter what I told people...it didn't matter how powerful the truth was...people weren't finding freedom on a consistent basis. That just seemed wrong to me.

Then a fellow pastor shared with me a video series on prayer for inner healing. It was about a new approach called Theophostic Prayer.  The word theophostic simply means "God's light". It refers to God revealing the source of our emotional pain and then healing us. I watched the videos and I was struck by the simplicity of it. I'm over simplifying it here but it basically involves a prayer facilitator helping a person find the source of their emotional pain through prayer.  

I was trained in this technique and worked with many clients. I then trained a few people in my church who built a ministry around this technique. We have seen hundreds of people set free from deep issues of depression, shame, anger, etc. as a result. The frustration that I  had in my previous counseling experience evaporated as person after person found true freedom.

Sadly, TPM has taken some criticism from people that don't understand the nature of it.  However when you compare the few who have criticism to the tens of thousands of people using this prayer ministry in over 150 countries worldwide the criticism becomes minuscule. Also, TPM has been maligned, not so much for the process but the facilitator. As with any counseling profession, there are good counselors and bad ones. But we don't negate the counseling profession just because of a bad counselor. So don't let the criticism of TPM scare you away.

My book, Healing the Hurts of Your Past,  is an excellent primer for TPM, that is, it doesn't teach you how to do it but it helps you understand the role that lies play in our dysfunction and how we can find true freedom. 

Note: I'm switching my blogsite to a new host. Please visit readingremy.com and subscribe!