The Nature of the Struggle

Whether we realize it or not, we likely know individuals who struggle with shame. We may be that individual. Shame occurs when a person feels that something they have done or something that has happened to them makes them incapable of being loved and accepted. Odds are that this person does not merely feel as if they have done wrong; they feel as if they are wrong. They feel like dirt, as if they are a walking infection that might contaminate everyone else around them. If their thoughts were put to words, it might sound something like this: “If other people knew this part of my life, they’d never speak to me again. My reputation would be ruined forever.” Shame is always an unpleasant feeling, no matter where it originates.

It is important to keep in mind that shame is not a one-size-fits-all experience. While shame can find its roots in personal sin (i.e., shame can be the result of wrongdoing done by a person), that is not the only possible cause of shame. Often, shame can be the result of harm experienced at the hands of others. In other words, shame can result in the soul of a person because of something done to them by other people. Shame can arise because of sin in a person, but shame can originate from something done to a person. In this latter case, it is more true to reality and more biblically appropriate to categorize shame as suffering-based.

How we come alongside and help a person caught in the throes of shame ought to be dictated by what category their shame falls into. We want to be compassionate and show compassion. Shame always hurts. Furthermore, if our friend is a Christian, their primary identity is that he/she is a child of the living God. Whether they happen to be functioning primarily as a sinner or a sufferer in this moment takes a backseat to the fact that they are first and foremost a saint. However they move forward needs to be from the starting point that they are dearly loved by the King.

This post will address three practical ways of assisting or supporting an individual struggling with suffering-based shame (another post will address assisting someone struggling with sin-based shame). These suggestions are representative, not exhaustive.

Three People-Helping Skills for Combatting Shame from Suffering

1. Take a struggler’s suffering seriously.
2. Encourage towards participation in Christian community.
3. Model Jesus’ response to shame: address shame more than you listen to it.

            First, it is vital to take a struggler’s suffering seriously. As biblical counselor Mike Emlet points out, “Scripture never shies away from Jesus’s stark reminder, ‘In the world you will have tribulation’ (John 16:33b). While it is true that Jesus goes on to say, ‘But take heart; I have overcome the world’ (John 16:33c), you never hear him scold, ‘Buck up, it’s not as bad as you think it is.’”[i] People-helpers may feel tempted to offer help by pointing out even worse scenarios of suffering. They should resist this impulse, for doing so dishonors the pain a shame-struggler undergoes.

            Taking suffering seriously implies asking the struggler good questions. Asking good questions comes from having the aim of really getting to know and care for a person, not simply gain information. Examples of helpful questions include “What has that been like for you?” or “Who are the people that have been most helpful to you in the middle of all this?”[ii]

            In order to ask good questions, a people-helper must work hard to understand the details, going beyond generalities of a person’s story. He or she must know the sufferer’s situation and perspective. Emlet describes, “[A]s you listen to someone’s story and are trying to fully understand it, be careful not to move away from the pain too quickly.”[iii]While it is desirable to know what the Bible says regarding certain topics that often pertain to suffering, also crucial is knowing the person and the details of their situation. If a people-helper intends to rightly apply Scripture, then he or she must also know the shame-struggler and their situation accurately.[iv]

            Taking a person’s suffering seriously also means a people-helper must beware of presuming to know the reason for a person’s suffering. God certainly uses all things (including suffering) to form his followers more into the character of Christ, make them long for Heaven, make them more compassionate towards others, and so on (Rom 8:28-29; 2 Cor 1:3-4; 2 Cor 4:7-18; 1 Pet 5:10). However, says Emlet, “[W]e should not confidently assert these are the reasons why a particular person is suffering. Don’t equate the endpoint of suffering (steadfastness, hope) with the inscrutable purposes of God for this particular person’s suffering…. we should be more tentative in our assertions, knowing that we are not able to truly penetrate the mystery of God’s will and purposes.”[v] A people-helper must beware of the danger of assuming he or she can have ultimate answers as to why a certain individual suffers.

            Second, a people-helper must encourage the struggler towards some level of Christian community. Without community, shame turns into a black hole, sucking the life out of a person and growing ever larger. As love and acceptance from other believers occurs, the love and acceptance of God becomes more tangible and believable. The importance of community does not necessarily mean that the struggler should share all the details of their shame and the reasons behind the shame. Brené Brown explains, “Vulnerability is based on mutuality and requires boundaries and trust. It’s not oversharing, it’s not purging, it’s not indiscriminate disclosure, and it’s not celebrity-style social media information dumps. Vulnerability is about sharing our feelings and experiences with people who have earned the right to hear them.”[vi] While community is vital, an individual must be encouraged to wisely select whom they share the details of their story with.

A person experiencing shame may consider risking any type of vulnerability as strange and deviant. Curt Thompson states, “Survival of the fittest is not easily translated into a dialect that includes vulnerability.”[vii] The thought of relational vulnerability is seen by a shame-struggler as simultaneously potentially liberating and terrifying. To get to the liberation means risking the terror.[viii] Be patient with this kind of individual.

            Third, if or when the voice of shame comes, a people-helper can encourage a struggler to face shame as Jesus faced shame. Jesus faced the shame and humiliation of the cross by explicitly despising the shame and recalling the joy that would be his on the other side of the cross. Aaron Sironi and Susan Monroe use Scripture-inspired imagination to picture Jesus facing down the shame in the following manner:

Silence! Listen to me, Shame. There is a joy that is coming that will be stronger and sweeter than your overbearing counsel. Your words threaten to melt my heart like wax, but my Father shows your words to be lies. I refuse to sip on your half-truths, to succumb to your seductive spell, to obey you. I despise you, Shame. You are powerful, but I will not be controlled by your voice. Joy. Joy. Pure joy compels me now. (Aaron Sironi and Kimberly Monroe, “Social Anxiety and Learning from the One Who Despised the Shame.” The Journal of Biblical Counseling 34, no. 1, 2020, 46.)

Jesus’s response is paradigmatic for a Christian.  His shame on the cross was clearly suffering-oriented, not sin-oriented (or else Jesus would never have experienced it). Though the threat of shame was real, the basis of the shame was false. Jesus talked back to it just as threateningly, but based on truth and a future hope. Threat of shame and humiliation did not have the last and ultimate word for Jesus, and for the Christian united to Jesus, the same holds true. Jesus had to go through the experience of threatened shame, but he endured by gazing past it to the joy of securing salvation for all those who would put their trust in him. For the Christian struggler, he or she should seek to imitate Jesus in this regard. The shame will not last. Eternity in Heaven with Jesus looms in the future, and shame cannot exist in Heaven (Isa 61:7; Rom 8:1). A people-helper encourages the struggler to talk back to the shame, not listen to it.

Be Patient and Love the Person

            If you have the privilege of walking alongside a person struggling with the experience of shame, don’t forget that he/she is an individual to be patiently loved, not a problem or a riddle to be solved. The how of the way you relate to your friend (i.e., the fruits of the Spirit) may be more important than what you say (i.e., Scripture, theology, biblical truths). “Brothers and sisters…Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.” (1 Thess 5:14) Our help will not be so helpful if our diagnosis is wrong. Suffering-based shame makes a person feel weak. Adopt a disposition that offers “tender care” to the weak and is “patient with everyone.”

Footnotes

[i] Michael Emlet, Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners: Loving Others as God Loves Us, (Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2021), 79.

[ii] Emlet, Saint, Sinner, Sufferer, 89.

[iii] Emlet, Saint, Sinner, Sufferer, 80.

[iv] Brad Hambrick, “Biblical Counseling: Rightly Interpreting the Person, Situation, and Bible,” (3 November 2020), https://bradhambrick.com/biblical-counseling-rightly-interpreting-the-person-situation-and-bible/.

[v] Emlet, Saint, Sinner, Sufferer, 81.

[vi] Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, (New York: Avery Publishing Group, 2015), 45.

[vii] Curt Thompson, The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 120.