bible

Freedom from Shame

/ Nicole Bartell / Leave a comment

I was having a conversation with a loved one a couple of weeks ago about the power of shame, how it keeps us from reaching out for the very help we need because it tells us we aren’t good enough. Shame tells us that we don’t deserve a second chance. I mentioned, “Relapse is a part of recovery.” There is a reason “Relapse” is one of the lessons in the Twelve Steps of CR. I may not have relapsed back into pornography, but I have frequently run back to food for comfort. And every time my life feels out of control, it is easy to slip back into trying to control others or to allowing someone else to make choices and decisions for me so I don’t have to feel shame for failing to “get it right.”

That’s the lie that shame keeps telling us: We aren’t good enough. And unfortunately, this has become a teaching in the church as well. There is so much focus on Romans 7:18 (NIV), “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” There are just two problems with that focus: 1) In recovery, this is step one…it is the starting place, not the ending; and 2) Focusing on this verse of Romans 7 completely ignores the rest of the chapter and Romans 8. Paul’s emphasis is not on the fact that we are sinful beings who have no hope. The rest of his letters do not refer to us as sinners but as saints: elect, called, chosen. His point in Romans is that we have been delivered from that nature. Romans 5:8-10 (CSB) clearly states, “But God proved His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. HOW MUCH MORE THEN, since we have now been justified by His blood, will we be saved through him from wrath. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then HOW MUCH MORE, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life” (emphasis mine). While we will struggle with the fleshly nature as long as we remain on this broken earth, it is not the driving desire of our hearts. Romans 7 is clear about how the heart’s desire is to do GOOD. The deliverance from the body of death is through the Spirit who now lives in us and is at work, changing us “from glory to glory.” While I still struggle with the temptation to try to control others when I feel out of control, that desire is weaker than it used to be, AND I catch it. Then I make amends. THAT is Step 10. WHEN we relapse (which we will in this broken world in one way or another), we get to return to Step One and start anew. When we hand out chips in our small groups at CR, the script for taking a blue chip states, “If you relapsed, remember there is no shame in coming back. We feel blessed you made it.”

We have an enemy who wants to bury us in shame so we won’t return to our Father and to His people to get the help and encouragement that we need to keep pressing on. My heart aches for the number of people in churches against whom this very weapon of the enemy is used to try to control and manipulate. That isn’t love, and it isn’t Jesus. Shame is not an effective motivator of change any more than fear is. I spent years being afraid of doing the wrong thing and saying the wrong words. I put on a mask to hide the insecurities inside: the fear of failure, of rejection, of abandonment. Unfortunately, the churches I was in only strengthened that fear and insecurity. It has taken a lot of work and a lot of people loving me like Jesus for me to come to know that if He saved me when I was still a sinner, when I was at my absolute worst, KNOWING everything that I would still do even as a believer, if He would look at me then and say I was worth being chosen, then for me to believe any less of myself than what He has said and shown is not believing the truth. When I believe a lie, He shows me through His Spirit, not to condemn me, but so I can come to Him and allow Him to replace that lie with the Truth. That is the beauty of a walk with Jesus. He gave us HIMSELF through His Spirit in us so that we could become more and more like Him. That is a gift worth grabbing and never letting go.

Seasons of Change

/ Nicole Bartell / 2 Comments

(Trigger warning: mentions of suicide)

This morning, the thermometer said 67 degrees. That was a call I could not ignore. I made my coffee, threw on a long-sleeved tee (not quite cold enough for a sweater yet, unfortunately), and made my way outside to my Adirondack rocker. The squirrels seemed even busier than usual, scurrying in the trees. I imagined them frantically preparing for this sudden change of weather. The birds were singing, my chimes were ringing in the breeze, and I sat and rocked thinking about the change of seasons.

Change used to terrify me. In January of 2011, I was looking back at a year that had shifted my life drastically. I had lost a group of people I had considered “family” for over ten years, and everything I thought I knew and believed was torn down to the foundation of Jesus. I did not yet see that as the perfect place to be. I just felt insecure, unsteady, and lost. That January was the first year I asked Dad for a word to represent what was ahead. His answer: “Change.” I was not happy with that response. I didn’t like change to begin with, but I truly felt I had just gone through enough to last me a lifetime. I begged Him for another word, but “Change” was the one on repeat.

That year, my mom’s house burned down, causing her to move away from me for almost two years. Now I can see that I felt abandoned by her again but at the time, I just felt lost. I started counseling that summer, and a whole flood of emotions I had been burying for decades overwhelmed me, and my counselor moved away before I could even begin to process all I was feeling. Feeling abandoned by a second person, I shut down rather than pursue getting more help. I felt tossed around by life, and I made an agreement that I did NOT like change.

As I pondered all that this morning, I thought about all the seasons that have come since. That year, as difficult as it was, brought the very first steps I ever took toward recovery. I wouldn’t actually pursue “recovery” for another seven years, but I took that first step. Every journey begins with one step. The years after 2011 brought even more change:

  • My sister-in-law taking her life in 2013 led me to go on antidepressants because I didn’t want to do the same thing to my son.
  • A severe car accident in 2014 irrevocably changed my son’s life, health, and personality as well as the dynamics of our family.

  • I started Celebrate Recovery in 2018, thinking I was going to get help with a pornography addiction I had struggled with since I was twelve only to find it was just a coping mechanism to avoid all the pain I had suppressed for most of my life.
  • I found a new family at CR, one that taught me that I was enough just as I am, that I didn’t have to perform to be accepted or loved.
  • I lost my mom in 2021 from a massive stroke.
  • I participated in starting a CR in our home church only to have the internal pressure to perform perfectly, along with the cracks it revealed in my marriage, cause us to close a year and a half later. I felt like a failure.
  • My precious aunt, whom I had cared for after my mom died, died only three years later.
  • My only child moved out on his own, shifting my role again. Who was I supposed to be now?
  • Before I could even begin to process that question, I was shot, and my whole life turned upside down.

Seeing it all written down here, I realize why I was so resistant to change in the past. Change meant I was out of control. I felt insecure when things happened that I wasn’t expecting or situations that altered the trajectory of my life. I had spent my entire life, from a very young age, just trying to feel safe in a world that offered less and less of it. Then, when I was shot, I realized I will never be truly safe in this life. That was probably the most unsettling realization of all. If there is no safety, what is the point? I went through a month or so where I just really wanted to go home … to go be with Jesus, where I would be safe forever. But it wasn’t time for that, so what should I do now that I know there is no true safety in this world? I find it in the only place there is to find it. I find safety in knowing who I am and WHOSE I am because that can never be taken away.

Hindsight allows me to see that those drastic seasons of change in my life, as difficult and painful as they were, also brought greater and greater freedom, love, assurance, and hope I could not have imagined at the time. Now, I renounce that agreement I made about hating change and remind myself of what it has brought into my life. I can see the faithfulness of my Dad who promised that He would work everything out for my good in His time. I am recording these things in my Book of Remembrance so that I have it at my fingertips. I don’t have to struggle to remember when the next wind of change blows and I feel tossed. I can pick up my book and look through my personal “stones” of remembrance that remind me that Dad is the same as He has always been. He is unchanging. And He is the same God who was there for me in the past, is still with me in the present, and will be there in the future.

“The LORD is my light and my salvation – whom should I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life – whom should I dread? When evildoers came against me to devour my flesh, my foes and my enemies stumbled and fell. Though an army deploys against me, my heart will not be afraid; though a war breaks out against me, I will still be confident. I have asked one thing from the LORD; it is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, gazing on the beauty of the LORD and seeking Him in His temple. For He will conceal me in His shelter in the day of adversity; He will hide me under the cover of His tent; He will set me high on a rock. Then my head will be high above my enemies around me; I will offer sacrifices in His tent with shouts of joy. I will sing and make music to the LORD. LORD, hear my voice when I call; be gracious to me and answer me. My heart says this about You: “Seek His face.” LORD, I will seek Your face. Do not hide Your face from me; do not turn Your servant away in anger. You have been my helper; do not leave me or abandon me, God of my salvation. Even if my father and mother abandon me, the LORD cares for me. Because of my adversaries, show me Your way, LORD, and lead me on a level path. Do not give me over to the will of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing violence. I am certain that I will see the LORD’s goodness in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart be courageous. Wait for the LORD.” (Psalm 27 CSB)