📜 SOOOOOOO, THAT HAPPENED! 👀
TAKE TWO! 🎬🪞👑
When Shame and Guilt Try to Get Up Off the Floor With You
6 PM — Soul Matters
Note 📝: This was due for 6 pm but today was so hard that Hard told me to give God my ESPECIALLY hard day and since He got this, I will let Him Narrate…🫂👣
Beloveds,
Remember where we left off earlier today?
🚽🧹🧻 The Potty Wars had taken an unexpected turn.
A cart slid.
A body followed.
An elbow had to bear weight.
And suddenly, the ordinary business of getting through the day became something far more difficult.
Getting up took three hours.
And getting through the morning cleanup took another three hours.
Whew!
Now, there’s something we need to talk about this evening.
Because falling is one thing.
What we tell ourselves while we’re down, and after we get back up, is another.
Earlier, we talked about not being afraid or ashamed to face what we MUST face.
Tonight, I want us to go a little deeper.
What happens when we face something we wish hadn’t happened?
What happens when life changes our abilities, our expectations, and even our understanding of what a successful day looks like?
And what happens when shame, guilt, and fear begin speaking louder than truth?
🪞 REFLECTION, WE NEED TO TALK.
Sometimes the most painful part of an experience isn’t what other people say.
It’s what we begin saying to ourselves.
I should have been able to do that.
Why is this taking so long?
Why do I need help?
Why can’t I do what I used to do?
What if it happens again?
Questions can quickly become accusations when shame gets hold of them.
But beloveds, there is an enormous difference between examining what happened and condemning ourselves because it happened.
A fall is an event.
It is not a verdict.
Needing help is a circumstance.
It is not a character flaw.
Taking three hours to accomplish something that once took minutes does not mean those three hours were wasted.
Those hours were lived. Those hours mattered.
And the person who needed them matters just as much as the person who once needed only minutes.
💔 WHEN YESTERDAY COMES INTO TODAY
Sometimes we enter a new day still carrying the weight of yesterday.
Yesterday may have been a birthday.
There may have been love, celebration, precious memories, laughter, and moments worth holding close.
And there may also have been grief.
A birthday doesn’t automatically make grief disappear.
A celebration doesn’t erase the absence of someone we desperately miss.
And sometimes, after giving a day everything we have, there isn’t much strength remaining for the following morning.
That doesn’t mean we failed to appreciate the celebration.
It means life can hold joy and sorrow in the same hands.
And when the next day brings another hard experience, we must be careful not to turn our exhaustion into an accusation against ourselves.
Beloveds, there is no shame in acknowledging that yesterday took everything we had.
There is no disgrace in needing longer today.
Sometimes life takes as long as life takes.
Not the amount of time someone else thinks we should need.
Not the amount of time we once needed.
The time this moment actually requires.
👑 NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT GUILT.
Guilt and shame are not exactly the same.
Guilt, when it is connected to something we’ve actually done wrong, can be an invitation to take responsibility.
We may need to apologize.
We may need to listen.
We may need to acknowledge harm we’ve caused and change our behavior.
But sometimes guilt appears where there has been no wrongdoing at all.
We feel guilty for being tired.
Guilty for asking for assistance.
Guilty for needing rest.
Guilty because someone else had to change their plans.
Guilty because our bodies can’t accomplish what our minds desperately want them to accomplish.
Beloveds, having a need is not a sin.
Receiving help is not a moral failure.
And experiencing physical limitations does not mean someone has become a burden without dignity, purpose, or value.
We must learn to distinguish responsibility from self-punishment.
Otherwise, we’ll find ourselves apologizing for simply being human.
🔥 AND WHAT ABOUT SHAME WHEN WE REALLY HAVE DONE WRONG?
This part is personal to the lesson I’m learning today.
Sometimes we can be so afraid of facing a mistake that we begin fighting the very correction that could help us grow.
We explain.
We defend.
We talk about our intentions.
We become occupied with how badly we feel about having failed.
But the person who needed us to listen is still waiting to be heard.
And our guilt becomes the center of the conversation instead of the correction that was needed.
I have had to face that.
There is a difference between saying, I feel terrible about what I did, and actually doing the work required to change.
An apology matters.
But an apology cannot do the work of changed behavior.
And feeling ashamed cannot replace accountability.
Sometimes the truth standing in front of us is simple:
I wasn’t listening.
I made an assumption.
I failed to honor what was entrusted to me.
I need to correct what I did.
We don’t have to run away from those truths.
We also don’t have to make them our permanent identity.
Grace doesn’t require us to deny our mistakes. Grace calls us to face them without surrendering to shame.
And I am learning that lesson, too.
🪞 DON’T BE AFRAID TO FACE YOUR FEARS.
What if we’re afraid of falling again?
What if we’re afraid of being misunderstood?
What if we dread asking for help?
What if we’re afraid that another attempt will expose the same weakness or the same mistake?
Fear deserves examination.
But fear doesn’t deserve absolute authority over our lives.
Sometimes fear alerts us to real danger.
Then wisdom tells us to find a safer way, seek assistance, make adjustments, and protect ourselves.
We do not have to prove our courage by taking unnecessary risks.
Other times, fear tries to convince us that because something difficult happened once, it is safer never to try again.
That is when we must ask what is actually true.
What have we learned?
What needs to change?
What help is available?
What can we do differently?
What must we accept about today without declaring that tomorrow holds no possibilities?
Beloveds, courage isn’t always standing up quickly.
Sometimes courage is acknowledging that we cannot get up alone.
Sometimes it’s allowing ourselves to receive the assistance we need.
Sometimes it’s trying again with a wiser plan.
And sometimes it’s simply refusing to let shame tell us that our lives are diminished because our circumstances have changed.
💙 THE HARD DOES NOT HAVE TO BECOME OUR ENEMY.
There is something remarkable about being able to acknowledge how rough an experience was and still find room for gratitude.
Not gratitude because falling was pleasant.
Not because pain is something to celebrate.
Not because three difficult hours were easy.
But gratitude that the hard did not get to write the whole story.
Gratitude for another opportunity.
For strength where it could be found.
For help where help was needed.
For the ability to recognize that even an ordinary task can require extraordinary effort.
And perhaps for a lesson that would have been easier to overlook on a less difficult day.
The hard can teach us without becoming our master.
It can remind us to pay attention.
It can reveal where we need support.
It can challenge our expectations.
And it can remind us that compassion must extend to ourselves as surely as we offer it to others.
👑 GRACE HAS SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT ALL OF THIS.
Beloveds, our Father knows the difference between rebellion and limitation.
Between refusing to do what is right and struggling to accomplish what we desperately want to do.
Between a heart that needs correction and a heart that needs comfort.
And sometimes we need both.
We can ask our Father for wisdom without demanding immediate answers.
We can ask for strength without pretending we aren’t tired.
We can confess wrongdoing without accepting every accusation shame puts before us.
We can grieve without apologizing for grief.
We can receive love without insisting that we must first earn it by accomplishing something impressive.
And we can face the mirror without turning it into a place of punishment.
There is no need to pretend that something was easy simply because we survived it.
There is no requirement to call pain pleasant in order to be thankful.
Our Father can receive the whole truth.
The gratitude.
The questions.
The weariness.
The hope.
The tears.
And the laughter that sometimes arrives in the middle of the most unexpected circumstances.
After all, who would have imagined that the Potty Wars could open the door to a conversation about dignity, shame, accountability, and grace?
🚽🧹🧻🤣
But here we are!
🪞 SO HERE IS OUR EVENING HEART CHECK.
Before we close today, I want us to consider something.
Have we been blaming ourselves for something that was not our fault?
Have we been ashamed of needing help?
Have we confused taking longer with being less capable of living a meaningful life?
Have we allowed yesterday’s grief to become today’s guilt?
Or have we made an actual mistake that we’re avoiding because facing it would require humility and change?
These are different questions.
And they deserve honest answers.
Where responsibility is ours, may we accept it.
Where an apology is needed, may we offer it and follow it with action.
Where assistance is needed, may we receive it without surrendering our dignity.
Where fear points toward danger, may we seek wisdom and safety.
And where shame has been telling lies about our worth, may we challenge those lies with truth.
We cannot heal what we refuse to face, but neither must we condemn ourselves for every hardship we encounter.
Beloveds, if today’s journey has been long, it has been long.
If the hard has been hard, it has been hard.
And if you are thankful while still acknowledging that it hurt, both truths belong.
You do not have to make your testimony prettier than the experience.
You do not have to hide the difficult chapters.
You do not have to let the clock determine your worth.
Three hours.
Six hours.
An entire day.
Sometimes life takes as long as life takes.
And sometimes the most meaningful thing we accomplish is learning how to meet ourselves with the same compassion we have been offering everybody else.
So tonight, when you face that reflection in the mirror, don’t ask only what went wrong.
Ask what you learned.
Ask what truth needs to be acknowledged.
Ask what needs repair.
Ask what deserves gratitude.
And remember that the person looking back at you is still worthy of love.
You are not the fall.
You are not the fear.
You are not the shame.
And when guilt reveals something that truly needs correcting, you still have the opportunity to choose differently.
Don’t be ashamed to face what you MUST face.
Take two! 🎬
And if necessary, take three.
One step…
You are NOT alone.
Loving me some you. 💙🫂👑
#YourLifeMattersToMe
