Dear Reader,
Below are the excepts of a letter penned to a dear friend this week. I realize that I have not finished telling you my story, but I must let you know the wonderful happenings in my soul this week. While my emotions have not yet connected with what I have written below, I can tell you that I possess a quiet confidence.
I have become so incredibly aware of the profound and universal shame which has been the hallmark of my life. It has been the impetus and the driving force of my behavior since the age of six. For the last 42 years, I carefully constructed and crafted a life ordered and shaped by shame. While regret has been my constant companion, shame has been a succubus, a possessor of my mortal soul. The continuous activism, compulsivity, and striving had all been efforts to keep shame at bay. Alas, how does one keep something at bay when that something is inside him? The answer, of course, is to dissociate, to split off from oneself, leaving vast tracts of one’s humanity and person alienated and exiled in darkness. The result is a life lived in a tentative and calculated fashion—a life only half lived.
So I am reminded of the words of Glenda the good witch from The Wizard of Oz, “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” It is time that I come out and be an authentic son of the Father-legitimate in very way. Legitimate and not a bastard son! Legitimate and not the hideous creature Grendel, but a prince and a co-heir with Christ our brother. Have I mastered this truth? No way! But it is truth nonetheless and I choose to bask in its rays and wait before the Creator, my Father, until this truth is a hallmark of my soul. The glacier of shame has been put on notice and even now it is retreating. I am searching for ways to live and express myself authentically. I have faith today that “[my] God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save [me].” Isaiah 35:4b. I do not know how or when, but I believe this as much as I believe that I am sitting in a chair typing this letter to you. I am reminded that God is never late (Isaiah 49:8) and he never forgets his children (Isaiah 49:15). He makes all things beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
So I am very aware, my friend, that I must end my relationship with shame and walk away from regret to a new way of living. I will not longer be bound by the tenets of a life half lived. I call upon the name of the LORD, much as Abram did when he went back to Bethel after his foray into Egypt. I call upon the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to send the Spirit of God to rise up in me, shatter the shame, and redeem my mortal soul for His purposes. God has named me Hepzibah and he delights in me. Today I see myself as an explorer of old arriving by sailing ship, thanking God for safe passage, and then taking the flag of my country and claiming the new land for king and country. I have no idea what is beyond the shores, but the land now belongs to my King and I am his representative. A new journey begins not without trials, hardship, and danger. I prayerfully equip myself with the uniform of a representative of the King. I pray that God will continue to strip away all that is not of Him, until I only reflect the Father.
I am 48 years old. I am divorced. I am a man. I am attracted to other men. I love God. I desire to do what is right in His eyes. I have three amazing children. I desire to live out of my true self as God intended.
Dear LORD Jesus, burn away of the shame which has consumed me and may I be consumed by your Spirit to live as an authentic and genuine man of God. Amen.
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