Here’s A Question…

What do you do when you feel guilty?

Not because you did something unforgivable, or terribly wrong, but because you feel like you’re not quite good enough… Not quite smart enough, or pretty enough, or your life isn’t as put together and perfect as people seem to think it is.

What do you do when that guilt and shame becomes debilitating?

Because the guilt affects every conversation you have—making your mind play tricks on you. It could be smallest of looks, the most innocent of sentences, but shame and guilt tells you that your friends all secretly despise you, that you’re annoying and they’d rather hang out with someone—anyone—else.

What do you do when you know that it’s wrong?

Maybe you keep acting normal. You force yourself to get up every day. You eat, shower, work, and do laundry. And you hang out with friends and family—but you don’t let them know about your irrational suspicions because you don’t want them to know how ridiculously insecure you are.

But what if acting normal isn’t working?

What if the guilt and shame is still there and getting worse? What if it’s making you self-sabotage yourself? And what if all you really want to do is shut out the world and hide beneath your covers in a corner of your room as if it will make all your problems disappear?

These are all the questions that I finally had to sit down and ask myself after shoving them to the side and ignoring them for months.

I recently posted about how one of my teacups spontaneously combusted, and honestly, I’ve been well on my way to that point as well.

Which is why something needs to change.

Missing The Point

Recently, God showed me just how complicated I’ve made my life.

On one hand, I’ve been getting a lot better about dealing with perfectionism when it comes to my writing and work, but the rest of my life has become strangled by it.

All these silly little rules and expectations that I’ve created for myself have sucked the life and energy out of me.

I’ve been setting myself up for failure, only to feel guilty and ashamed when I fail.

But a week ago, while I was sitting with my guilt, a thought entered my head:

“Stop trying to follow all the rules, and start listening to me.”

I knew right away that it was God speaking to me.

And at that moment, the feelings of guilt and shame started to fade away.

Then, another thought entered my mind:

“I’ve missed you.”

In all my striving and struggling—reading my Bible, or trying to keep up with my work and life stuff, I missed the point.

I missed God.

God doesn’t want my shame or guilt. He doesn’t need me to be perfect on my own—he already knows that I can’t be. 

Right now, he just wants me to listen.

Getting Rid Of Guilt

So what does that look like?

Well, in my case it looks like this:

• Instead of reading books in the New Testament like James, Philippians, or Hebrews, I currently need to focus on the parts where Jesus speaks to people.

• Instead of making my time with God a strict routine, I need to be more open to speaking with God or hearing him at any point during my day (which might mean setting aside my regular work, or pausing my music and other distractions for a while).

And that’s it unless God brings something else to my attention. 

God has been so incredibly patient with me throughout my entire life, but his patience has been especially obvious to me in recent years.

Instead of constantly feeling guilty and ashamed of my desperate need for God’s patience and love, this time I want to thank him and just accept it.

Because I know that’s what he wants me to do as well.

Before You Go…

What do you do when you feel guilty? How do you deal with shame when it tries to hold onto you?

Let me know down in the comments!

Have you read my new book yet? Find An Ambassador’s Ploy here!