An Army Unashamed Pt. 2

Last night I had the opportunity to speak at my church's youth group. I had been given about three weeks to prepare which is more notice than I usually have. I began to pray and ask God what He wanted me to share with these kids.

Right away I got one word. Shame. So I began to work on fleshing that out into a message. I looked up scripture verse after scripture verse on shame. I did word studies and read articles and portions of books I have sitting in my book case. I knew this message was going to come together and it was going to be great.


But then I began to actually try to write the message. At first it was great. I worked on it for a day and was pleased with my progress. The next time I went to work on it, however, everything changed. What I had didn't seem to fit. So I wrote something different. Once again, I was pleased. And then I went back to finish it two days later and the same thing happened. What I had didn't seem right and I was back to square one.

I wasn't too worried at this point because I am good at putting something together last minute so I knew it would come. Saturday I tried working on it again and this time there was just nothing. I felt God was telling me that I was supposed to speak about my personal experience with shame but I didn't fully know what He wanted to talk about.

Sunday night came around and I was stressed beyond belief. About an hour before it was time to start I went into a conference room with my friend to pray and figure out what I was going to say. Through talking with my friend, God revealed to me what He wanted me to share with the kids. I didn't like it. I didn't want to talk about it. I was freaked out.

But I did it. I shared with them how shame was put on me at the age of three when I was molested by a man at a day care and I shared with them the progression of shame in my life as I grew up and made bad decision after bad decision with guys that compounded my shame.

I spoke about the goodness and grace and God and how He purifies us and makes all things new. I told them how I didn't understand how God could take our shameful pasts and make something inexplicably beautiful out of it but I know that He can and will

It went better than I could have expected. For over 20 minutes I had the complete undivided attention of 20 jr. high and high school girls. After I finished, a few of the girls came up to me and spoke to me about their own experiences and how they were struggling with these things.

In that moment, I felt the Holy Spirit lifting shame off of me and revealing His goodness through my willingness to be honest and vulnerable.

In that moment I began to understand what it means when God says in Isaiah that instead of our shame, He will give us a double portion.

He will restore to me everything that was taken away and everything I willingly gave away.

I am becoming more and more like Jesus and I am learning what it means to be a part of an Army Unashamed.

Shame kills. Shame steals. Walk in light and truth and allow God to strip away your shame and give you His beauty.  Become a part of this Army Unashamed. Walk in your true identity and destiny and allow God to rename you and call you His own. He is more than able.