Pamela Hall – The Battle of the Armrest: Shamed to the Core

Do you remember the first time you felt shame? I do. Much like Eve in the garden of Eden, I got called out for a sin committed. I didn’t take a bite of a piece of fruit. No, I took a bite out of Sherry Chaffin’s arm. Don’t get alarmed. I really don’t go around biting women. This happened when I was in kindergarten, and Sherry was my best friend, at least until the biting incident.

It all began at a school assembly when we were seated in the auditorium waiting to watch a puppet show. Excitement was running high. I remember sitting down and putting my arm on the armrest. A few minutes later Sherry pushed my arm off, so I politely returned my arm to its rightful place. You probably have never heard of The Battle of the Armrest at Castlewood Elementary, but I was there. It was real.

Sherry was a worthy opponent as we wrestled for the prized position, until I got tired of the battle. Without giving any thought to what I was doing, I leaned over and gave her a little nip. She didn’t cry. She just retreated and meekly accepted that I had won the battle. We watched the puppet show and went back to class as friends, or so I thought.

When I was walking out to the bus later that afternoon, three words and a pointing finger stopped me in my tracks. Sherry’s mom stood there with another mom glaring at me. I’ll never forget her words or the immediate sense of shame that accompanied them, “She’s the one!!!” In that moment, I knew I was guilty. After all, I had bitten Sherry, even if it was only a little nip. But I wasn’t prepared for the tone of her mom’s voice. I didn’t understand the Mama Bear concept at that time. All I could do was stand there frozen in fear. Picture a large courtroom with a five-year old standing before a very angry judge with a contorted face. Now you have a good idea of how I felt.

There I stood in my shame, guilty of the crime, but unable to reconcile what I was feeling. Instinctively, I knew this was about more than simply doing something wrong. Sherry’s mom and her pointing finger was a shot to the core of my identity. The message behind the words and pointing finger was, “You are bad. You are unworthy of love and forgiveness.”

Mrs. Chaffin had no idea how her words impacted me nor that she planted seeds of shame in my heart that day. Sherry and I went to school together from kindergarten through our senior year of high school. We remained friends. I never bit her again. We never had a second battle for the armrest. I don’t know if she even remembers the incident, but I have never forgotten it.

If my adult self could go back to that moment, I would pick up my five-year old self and tell her that it’s okay. Sometimes you do bad things, but that doesn’t make you worthless or unlovable. That’s what a counselor would tell me to do, and it would be helpful and true. But shame in your core requires more than a conversation. It requires Jesus. It requires the truth of the gospel and an understanding of what Jesus actually did for us. Not only did he bear the punishment for our sins, but he bore our shame as well. In exchange, he has given us his honor.

Our attempts to deal with shame usually include trying to outrun it (pretend we don’t feel it), disprove it (blame others for it), or crumble in a heap and believe it. The gospel changes the narrative when we recognize that Jesus dealt with shame on the cross. God dealing with shame wasn’t a new concept. It can be traced all the way back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned and felt shame for the first time. They tried to cover their shame with fig leaves (outrun). They tried to disprove it by blaming others. (Adam blamed God and Eve. Eve blamed the serpent.) Yet, only God could do something about it.

When we find ourselves confronted with shame, we need to consider how we are dealing with it. Are we trying to outrun it by distracting ourselves from it or compensating for it with things like food, shopping, or gossip? Are we trying to disprove it by blaming others for it? Or, are we overly critical of ourselves discounting our value and worth? If so, then we have forgotten the gospel and are trying to deal with it ourselves. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that Jesus endured the cross and scorned it’s shame. Just as God dealt with Adam and Eve’s shame in the garden clothing them in animal skins, Jesus dealt with our shame on the cross clothing us in his righteousness.

A shame-based identity focuses on how we fall short of self-imposed or cultural standards. We often find ourselves thinking such things as, “I am a success when I do… or my kids act… or I am advancing in my…,” When this happens, we are living out of a shame-based identity. Hopeless and helpless, we see our value and our worth slipping away because our identity is based on what we do rather than what Christ did. That’s when we need to remember what God did in the garden. He was the only one who could do something about Adam and Eve’s sin and shame. Christ is the one who can do something about ours. Through his death, he paid the price for our sin and dealt with the reign and chaos of shame in our lives.

If my adult self could go back to that moment at Castlewood Elementary, I would pick up my five-year old self and tell her Jesus never ignores the things that shame us. Instead, he enters into our shame with us. In the Battle of the Armrest, I picture Jesus pulling out the seeds of shame that were planted in my heart that day. The condemning tone and the pointing finger is no longer directed at me. The focus has shifted to another scene, one that happened long ago as Jesus hung on a cross while people condemned and pointed at him.

The battle for our identity is over. Shame may continue to rear its ugly head, but it will retreat when we allow Jesus to be the bearer of it. Like Sherry Chaffin, we need to meekly accept that Jesus has won the battle. After all, he was the only one who could fully and completely deal with our shame. Do you believe it?

Pamela Hall