Common Ground with Charlie Brown, Part I

You know that feeling when you need to undo a zipper and you can’t reach it? Twisting, turning,

pretzeling your arms isn’t producing the desired result. That’s what this piece of grave clothing felt like. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it to take it off. I couldn’t even find the words in prayer to point to.

I knew there was something else buried, I just couldn’t make it out in the cavernous reaches of my soul. I went through my mental check list of things I’d grieved through but maybe didn’t finish. One by one my fingers tapped on an invisible memory. Nope…it wasn’t connecting.

Then, the Holy Spirit gave me a mental picture of Charlie Brown and Lucy and the infamous football gag. I laughed thinking, “The Lord uses Peanuts to get His point across. This is new revelation.” Then the meaning of the mental cartoon took my breath away.

I didn’t trust Him.

HIM! The maker of the universe, King of all Kings, my Abba, my Beloved.

I didn’t trust HIM.

He showed me that in all the moments of grieving lost dreams - after I had forgiven all others connected to the loss - I still superimposed HIS countenance on Lucy and I was Charlie Brown. My hopes and dreams didn’t feel safe in His hands anymore. Somewhere in this deep cavern a little girl expected her Daddy to protect her dreams and destiny from death. She expected Daddy to protect her castle on a hill.

When the castle burned to the ground, she never fully grieved the loss of perfect trust in a perfect Daddy.

When dreams and hopes are pulled away as you race to launch them and you fall on your back looking at the sky, you stop trusting the one holding the promises.

And on a REALLY bad day a bird flies overhead and poops on you.

“And those who know your name will put their trust in You; 

For you, Oh Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.” Ps 9:10

Shame

I will never forget the news footage and pictures of victims running through the streets like phantoms from a horror movie when the twin towers fell in 2001. White ash and debris clung to their anguished faces, their clothes devoid of any color but that of the soot and dust.

Spiritually, I could identify with these precious souls. For over a decade it felt I was climbing out of the ruins of a life with ash and soot clinging to me like wet garments; or wet grave cloths as it were.

I couldn’t shake this caked-on feeling in my soul, so I asked the Holy Spirit to show me what was clinging to me after all these years. I’d forgiven. I’d let go. I’d even gone through deliverance (now that takes commitment!). Yet in my soul I felt sticky residue. After a time of listening, I sensed the phrase, “stale shame.”

So I guess this means that stale grief has a cousin!

There are two kinds of shame:

·    Well-placed shame (or conviction). This is due to one’s sin or wrong doing; an appropriate response followed by correcting the wrong.

·    Mis-placed shame. This happens when we take upon ourselves shame that has nothing to do with our own actions or sin; a dishonoring of God that we did not have a hand in. This is self-centered shame.

Apparently, while in the rubble of my life, I’d donned grave cloths of shame and they became stale. I read somewhere that much of what makes us feel shame is not that we dishonor God by our actions, but that we failed to give the appearance that other people admire.

Ouch.

Misplaced shame happened to Jesus and to Paul. The crowd called Jesus a temple-destroyer. They called Paul mad when he defended himself in court and even called him an enemy. In other words, I was in good company.

The Lord gave me a prescription for this shame – but you will have to read on in the next post for it. (Marketing 101, make them come back for more).

”O Lord you brought my soul up from the grave;

You have kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit.”

Psalms 30:3