Yesterday I was clearing out my bedroom and our kitchen as some friends were coming to stay while Marilyn and I are away to do some decorating for us. A friend came to help me move some of the furniture and I began to feel rather embarrassed as I realised there was a lot of dust on top of the kitchen cupboards and behind my bed. Scraps of old tissues, sweet wrappers and odd bits of paper also dotted the carpet behind the bed. Oh dear, I thought, what will she think of me? I should pull the bed out regularly and clean behind it!
It was a silly thing to worry about as I can’t even move the bed on my own and I know that probably the majority of households have dusty corners and bits of old rubbish down the back of chairs and behind beds and I’m sure I’m not the only one whose cupboard tops get dusty.
The funny thing about shame though is its flattening effect. Worry about how others view you, stop you living life as an adventure and make you live it in an ‘oh no, I’ve messed up!’ kind of way. It actually WAS an adventure as I found things I’d forgotten I had and even found a £10 note down the back of a chair!
Will I let myself live life’s adventure or let myself be flattened by false guilt and shame? My friend certainly didn’t care about the dust and bits of scrap we came across and later said how much she’d enjoyed the time. That’s what I need to receive, not the silly shame.
In the Song of Solomon, Solomon says repeatedly, ‘ how beautiful you are my darling, oh how beautiful.’ And once he even says ‘All beautiful you are, my darling, there is no flaw in you.’ As i felt that tinge of embarrassment over the dusty shelves and bits of rubbish in myhouse, it was as if the Lord showed me that when I look in my own life, sometimes I see it as if I am full of rubbish and dust. But he is saying that he sees me as beautiful, even without flaw! That’s incredible! How can it even be? But I realise it is because of Jesus and all he carried in my place. He has made me beautiful because he has taken all the rubbish and dusty bits. The trouble is that if I choose to see myself as full of old rubbish, then I am giving life to a shadow that’s already been made redundant. How can I even think of doing that?
My friends who are painting our rooms will leave those walls like new. No more marks or blemishes, no more dusty bits (at least for a while!). In an even more amazing way, I have been made to be the beautiful home of the Holy Spirit. He has made me new. I am clean and pure and yes, beautiful to him and that’s the truth. Satan will keep throwing embarrassment and shame at me and showing me all:sorts of dusty corners that he wants me to be shamed by but I’m gonna try with all Jesus strength, to wave goodbye to such shame and live life as an adventure of discovery and the knowing he has made me beautiful.
Tracy Williamson
