Living God’s True Story

As a woman I know shame like I know a bad haircut (and I’ve had a few). I know what it feels like to react to social expectations by making myself smaller. I’ve learned unspoken rules about when I can or can’t speak. And worse, I’ve conceded when others have thought that I should simply “sit still and look pretty.” I would dare to suggest that most of us know what it feels like to be unworthy, unseen, and devalued.

Let it also be noted, I didn’t need much external encouragement for the story my internal dialogue with shame was telling to compound: It only took a few harsh words from a close companion to leave me feeling gutted and hurt beyond words. She betrayed me by overstepping my boundaries and aiming at my weakness, and I felt deep humiliation.

As her words reverberated, sad, hot tears cut through the pink blush strokes on my cheeks, and a depressing inner script formed in my mind. What if she was right? What if I didn’t measure up and would never fit the mold of the “perfect mom”? What if I was the failure she saw in me?

And there they were: new neurological pathways forming every time I gave her words, and this feeling of shame, one more thought. For some time afterward, her sucker punch wired its own highway through my mind. My thoughts raced with no speed-limit sign in sight.

This is what shame does. Shame makes us run as fast as we can from the truth of who we are.

The first people God created lived in a magnificent garden filled with colors and sounds our imaginations can’t even begin to comprehend: But can you try to imagine what their surroundings meant? Can you try to picture what a perfect, most creative, every-resource-at-his-fingertips God would create in his garden? Can you see it? Can you run between the trees, touching every leaf? Can you inhale the smell that’s better than any perfume you’ve ever known? Can you feel God’s closeness? Can you sense his love?

From the very beginning, God created human beings, male and female, in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). Soak in the whole story of Genesis 1, and notice the details—the stars, the animals (every kind!), the expanse of the waters, and the light separated from the darkness. That’s the God of the Bible—one of expansive creativity whom every creature and creation knows and recognizes as Maker.

Then there is you. Yes, you! More esteemed than all the animals, you as a human are among those worthy to be created in God’s image. You are God’s image, one of the Creator’s representatives. You were created to show the rocks, the dolphins, the stars, the waters, and even your fellow image bearers exactly what God is like. You and I and every person who has ever lived (and will ever live) were deemed worthy from the very beginning.

Dear woman, what if how you represent God is exactly the expression another woman needs? And what if how she expresses God is the one you need? You are a unique and worthy expression that God shines through to help your corner of the world understand him better. All your color, all your light, all your imperfections (that God is constantly working on to bring more beauty), all your gifts, and all your talents are the exact images God is bursting through in you to show others what God is like.

Our lives might not feel like walking in the cool evening breezes, and the weight of the world might be pressing in on us. But you and I can retreat to a kind of garden. We can go again and again to where we find truth—God’s Word, the Bible—and remember: