Replacing Shame with Grace
Listen to this post here It seems fitting that I am writing this piece just before Christmas. In my previous piece on guilt and mercy, I promised to discuss their siblings, shame and grace. While shame is closely linked to guilt, it is a battle all its own. It’s been a while, so let’s refresh our memories on that vocab lesson from last time: Guilt is thinking, “I did something bad.” Shame is thinking, “I am a bad person.” The losses we suffer on our journey to motherhood can heap immense guilt upon us, some of it earned but some of it not. Regardless of how the guilt gets there, the remedy is always mercy: “compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm.” This mercy comes from God, who doesn’t punish any of these sins as they deserve, but shows us His loving kindness in our afflictions from guilt. But guilt can be a tricky business which will lead us right into the lap of what we’re going to look at today. If we don...