My Pastor and Shame
I wish I could say that everything is fine now or that all is well. I wish I were over the hurtles and the pain and I could report to everyone that I am physically healed. It feels like I am on hold and that people who love me are on hold with me. It sometimes feels like I am burdening them and yet I know that their love comes without a price tag or any sort of expectations or limits. Their love, like the love of my pastor who visited with me this afternoon seems limitless. It gets me to realize that there are no restrictions to love and compassion and that these are all people who god has blessed me with. Today when I was to be completely alone and my care giver and friend was not to be here, my husband at work, my pastor takes the time to visit me. I think I must have shared everything there is to know about me with him and he in turn listened with a look of interest and responded with affirmation and love. I guess that is why he is a pastor and others of us are coaches, teachers, or nurses. He has that special brand of faith that he brings to to others in our church and that he brings to me in our home. No judgements and no expectations, just pure and simple love. I wonder where he got all that wisdom that he brings with him and I wonder what journey led him to me, to us all at UCC Epiphany. I have to be curious as to why I landed in his church just before my civil union to my husband and he would be the one to perform our marriage and it be the first one civil union for him. It is when I wonder so much that I realize that I can stop wondering because there is a reason that none of us need to know. He has since been there for us as a couple and for me during this time of darkness and of light, making it just a little more bearable for me and bringing to me the understanding that I too deserve to be supported and loved.
After my pastor left I read his sermon online about Shame. It is a topic that he selected for the next few sermons and if you all heard him speak I can assure you that you would know it is from the depth of his heart and spirit. When he speaks I can see the light in his face and I can feel the realness in his body language. He has not just put intellectual effort into his sermon but rather he has put his entire soul into it. I cannot know this for sure but what I know is that it feels that way. Whatever the message is, it is one that many times feels like it was spoken for me personally. It is timed as if it were god speaking through my pastor to me, to all of us. This sermon that I could not hear in person and read online was a wake up call for me today. Shame is a topic and a feeling near and dear to me having been abused by my mother, someone who I was suppose to feel safe with and someone who I ran from as a teen, barely saving my own life and hers. As I read the sermon it became more and more clear to me that the life I have lived in the past was filled with shame and that shame leaves no room for forgiveness of self. It is one thing to acknowledge our mistakes in life but yet another thing to live in shame because when we live in shame we carry that burden forever. We dig our heads deeply into our pillow and we cannot look up for fear of judgement. We believe we cannot fix this and it is permanent. I let go of some of my shame today. I released the shaming feeling about my new body and I released my shame about having abused my body for so many years by smoking, even though I'd quit nine years ago. I released some of the shame as a child who felt unworthy of love and who was invisible. I released it because I am not my body and I am not that abused child anymore. I let it go because I am not a smoker nor did I realize till later in life how suicidal my habit was. Shame is a powerful in that it leaves no room for forgiving others or forgiving ourselves. That sermon truly drove that truth home for me. I sit in gratefulness now because I am not the abused victim today and I don' t have to be ashamed of anything. With all the mistakes I made there were still and continue to be a lot of service to mankind led by my spirit and the fact that I am truly a survivor.
I don't know what is going to happen with me. I ask God to let me live at least long enough to make one more mark or long enough to make a difference in my grandkid's lives. I would like to live long enough to go to Italy, India and France as planned. I would like to live long enough to see the walls of our home painted that lovely shade of aqua. I would like to live just long enough to dance at my birthday party and to show my husband how much I appreciate him for hanging in there with me. I would like to live long enough until I have lived long enough. I only wish I knew what that meant and what long enough is for me. But since I cannot pick my fate and since I don't get to say how long I will be here I mostly want to be in a place where I am grateful for having lived long enough.
I want to cry every day. I want to see my pastor one more time in church. I want to dance with my friends Jackie and Esther. I want to laugh with my sister Marta. I want to roll on the grass with Isabella and fly one more kite with Mia. I guess what I know is that what I want is simply that. It is what I want. And so my request of goddess is to give me exactly what she deems I need whether it is one day or four years. I must know that whatever amount of time I am gifted with will be just the right amount of time. As I spoke today of those who have left before me: my sister, my grandparents, my great grandmother, my cousins, my uncle, my father in law, my mother in law and a good friend who made me laugh every single time, I realized that I will get all the time that I need and that I too will get all the days that are coming to me and that I will meet my maker in the time I am to meet her. It is then that I let go of the fear and it is then that I live fully today no matter what or where I am in that moment. I hereby release all that is not in my highest good. I claim all that is love and all that is offered to me. I live in courage and not in fear. I live in the now and without trying to control things. I am not my body and I am not my past mistakes. I live with the knowing that I have made mistakes but that I deserve to be loved and looked at with compassion. I release those people in my life that cannot see me because I know I am not invisible. In fact I am very much visible!
I am compelled to ask all of you who read this to make a comment to me. I know that all of you are my teacher and that I can learn from you. If you got to the end of this blog and press on no comments or comments, type in your feedback and press publish I would be very appreciative. God bless everyone.
Coach Elliott
After my pastor left I read his sermon online about Shame. It is a topic that he selected for the next few sermons and if you all heard him speak I can assure you that you would know it is from the depth of his heart and spirit. When he speaks I can see the light in his face and I can feel the realness in his body language. He has not just put intellectual effort into his sermon but rather he has put his entire soul into it. I cannot know this for sure but what I know is that it feels that way. Whatever the message is, it is one that many times feels like it was spoken for me personally. It is timed as if it were god speaking through my pastor to me, to all of us. This sermon that I could not hear in person and read online was a wake up call for me today. Shame is a topic and a feeling near and dear to me having been abused by my mother, someone who I was suppose to feel safe with and someone who I ran from as a teen, barely saving my own life and hers. As I read the sermon it became more and more clear to me that the life I have lived in the past was filled with shame and that shame leaves no room for forgiveness of self. It is one thing to acknowledge our mistakes in life but yet another thing to live in shame because when we live in shame we carry that burden forever. We dig our heads deeply into our pillow and we cannot look up for fear of judgement. We believe we cannot fix this and it is permanent. I let go of some of my shame today. I released the shaming feeling about my new body and I released my shame about having abused my body for so many years by smoking, even though I'd quit nine years ago. I released some of the shame as a child who felt unworthy of love and who was invisible. I released it because I am not my body and I am not that abused child anymore. I let it go because I am not a smoker nor did I realize till later in life how suicidal my habit was. Shame is a powerful in that it leaves no room for forgiving others or forgiving ourselves. That sermon truly drove that truth home for me. I sit in gratefulness now because I am not the abused victim today and I don' t have to be ashamed of anything. With all the mistakes I made there were still and continue to be a lot of service to mankind led by my spirit and the fact that I am truly a survivor.
I don't know what is going to happen with me. I ask God to let me live at least long enough to make one more mark or long enough to make a difference in my grandkid's lives. I would like to live long enough to go to Italy, India and France as planned. I would like to live long enough to see the walls of our home painted that lovely shade of aqua. I would like to live just long enough to dance at my birthday party and to show my husband how much I appreciate him for hanging in there with me. I would like to live long enough until I have lived long enough. I only wish I knew what that meant and what long enough is for me. But since I cannot pick my fate and since I don't get to say how long I will be here I mostly want to be in a place where I am grateful for having lived long enough.
I want to cry every day. I want to see my pastor one more time in church. I want to dance with my friends Jackie and Esther. I want to laugh with my sister Marta. I want to roll on the grass with Isabella and fly one more kite with Mia. I guess what I know is that what I want is simply that. It is what I want. And so my request of goddess is to give me exactly what she deems I need whether it is one day or four years. I must know that whatever amount of time I am gifted with will be just the right amount of time. As I spoke today of those who have left before me: my sister, my grandparents, my great grandmother, my cousins, my uncle, my father in law, my mother in law and a good friend who made me laugh every single time, I realized that I will get all the time that I need and that I too will get all the days that are coming to me and that I will meet my maker in the time I am to meet her. It is then that I let go of the fear and it is then that I live fully today no matter what or where I am in that moment. I hereby release all that is not in my highest good. I claim all that is love and all that is offered to me. I live in courage and not in fear. I live in the now and without trying to control things. I am not my body and I am not my past mistakes. I live with the knowing that I have made mistakes but that I deserve to be loved and looked at with compassion. I release those people in my life that cannot see me because I know I am not invisible. In fact I am very much visible!
I am compelled to ask all of you who read this to make a comment to me. I know that all of you are my teacher and that I can learn from you. If you got to the end of this blog and press on no comments or comments, type in your feedback and press publish I would be very appreciative. God bless everyone.
Coach Elliott
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