Buckets of Shame and Barrels of Energy

I will soon be (GIANT GULP/SOB) 46 years old.  With another year, comes more reflection.

What has my life been about all of these years?  What has driven me?  What am I passionate about?  What next?  How will I get there?

My sisters and my family were my life and I thought about them in every decision I made.  Then my husband and soon after my boys became my every passion.  I love being a sister, wife and mother. 

Being a wife and mom has been and will continue to be the most important calling of my life.  These roles have filled me with joy and until more recently riddled my heart with guilt and shame.  I think of the barrels of energy wasted on guilt and shame.  I could not and would not be the perfect wife and mother I wanted to give my family.  

The shame became my driver, even as my family was my passion.

I remember sobbing into my pillow my prayers seeking God for forgiveness and not to take my sisters and family from me because of my mistakes.  Even the mistakes put upon me, I took up dutifully on as my shame. 

As my children grew, I begged God to protect them from me.  From my baggage and shame.  From my failures and faults.  I had a little black book, so to speak, of every time I grabbed, yelled or hurt them. 

I simultaneously lived and died.  Punished myself and pushed myself.

Shame sucks the life, energy and motivation right out of the soul and human heart.

For me, my mindsets and beliefs had paralyzed me.  As Carol Dweck teaches about a fixed mindset.  "It’s about being perfect right now. In the  fixed  mindset  it’s  not  enough  just  to  succeed.  It’s  not  enough  just  to  look  smart or talented. You have to be pretty  much  flawless.  And  you  have  to  be  flawless right away."

A life stranded and stuck between law and grace. 

Or as God Word says in Romans 12:2, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Or 2 Corinthians 7:10 NLT states,  "For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There's no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death."

I believe we need truth and grace.  The law and His truth brings us to Him and His grace leads us.  Guilt is to bring us to our need, while shame is a slough of despondency as Pilgrim's Progress details.  This slough allows us to wallow in selfishness and shame.  Slowly depleting every ounce of life from our soul.

To me, this slough is a perfect picture of the "Fixed Mindset."  A quick sand. 

Working harder to get out...simply doesn't work.  It exhausts and depletes us.

What do we need?  A change of mind and mindset.

So what is next?  What will drive my next 46 years?  Nothing! 

I want to be free for this trip.  I want to be passionate about my calling, my family and my life. 

I don't want to waste time stuck in boughs of despondency or weighted down by the buckets and barrels of shame and failure.