Reflections on shame...

So, I started out the day by reading Psalm 31, and it struck me so much that I even read it to Lindsey as we were eating breakfast on our hot carpet. Afterwards, she was like, "why Psalm 31 today, Haid?" I tried to explain that I love so many of the Psalms' focus on God being the One who frees us from shame. There are so many times when the writer of the psalm is begging God things like, "Save me from disgrace!" "Don't let my enemies gloat over me!" "Keep me from shame!" And the list could go on...

Those kinds of prayers have been often on my lips since I moved to this country. Really, try living where you don't know the language, you're a young female, and there are so many cultural rules that it simply isn't possible to memorize or follow them all...and see how often you end up praying that God keeps you from shame! :) Misspoken words, misread actions, the wrong response at the wrong time to a sentence that you didn't quite catch or understand...the possibilities are endless.

Today was good, but it was one of those personally-frustrating days where it seemed like shameful possibilities just kept getting thrown in my face. Cindy mentioned casually over lunch today that she'd had a good talk with some of the other ladies about the difficulties and worries there are when working with young missionaries. (I KNOW that she didn't actually mean it as an accusation, but I'm definitely the youngest person here...and I don't have to think too far back into my distant memory to find things like...oh, shutting down a program, messing with finances, hurting a lot of people...all on my track record. Bother.) I don't have to think far at all before I notice my shyness that is all-to-often debilitating when I'm supposed to speak or lead, and how often I don't say things when I'm supposed to or say things when I'm not supposed to...sigh. And I don't have to think at all to notice how often I respond in tightness or sadness or fear rather than the comfortable, "this is all going to pass, let's deal with it reasonably and logically" sense that adults seem to carry with them. Besides all of those greatly encouraging thoughts, tonight coming home I decided it was high time to send an email to another friend of mine, clarifying relationships in general...knowing that any ordinary person's response to that would be something like, "What is this young girl trying to say?! She's crazy to even be thinking this way!!"

Sigh. The moral of the story is either 1). don't be young and stupid, 2). live in a cave, or 3). pray like the psalmists did.

Working with kids, sometimes a person finds that even as he/she is finishing a task, the child is behind him/her, making another mess or ruining just what was done before...I feel often like this in working with myself. I'll be going along thinking, "Wow! How cool is this!?" and then turn around to see the spilled milk, broken cookies, messy toys, and say, "Who did this?!"...only to be faced with myself as the culprit.

Here are similarly-minded musings from earlier today:

The more I struggle to be free,
The more the twist entangles me...
Brought to my knees, past thought of lying,
Until I'm crawling, rolling, crying...
Facing the blood that's been on my hands,
Then watching you, guilty I stand
And I wait for the judgement call.

No strong killer nor pure one,
Courageous nor holy I come,
Selfishness and fear the blood on my hands,
Tearer of strings, twister of bands,
Covered with remants of webs woven
Scratched, bruised, relationships cloven,
Of myself, there's no hope at all.

But...

You don't leave me on my knees,
You grasp the deep roots of the weed,
When the spines tear Your flesh, You don't look back,
And grace and love for all I lack
Of courage, truth, or love in me
Comes rushing in, like the sea
I'm no longer void--You're my all.

Rather bad poetry, but I blame it on the fact that I was listening to a lecture in Japanese about fish the same time I was writing it... :)

Today was our "One day Christian seminar" at church, or something like that, and this morning's seminar was entitled "Where does power for living come from?" I enjoyed it, even though I understood only about 5% of it...I think what the speaker was saying is that our power for living comes from God's love...(how's that for a very short summary? :))

I agree with that idea completely... I think of Jesus, experiencing the shame of our sin, God leaving Him, and dying on a cross...and then think of the Holy Spirit, coming to live and fill where I lack...it's really, truly, the only place that power comes from that is good.

Enough random reflections for one night. Praise God for new days...