Standing Under the Broken Heart: How Shaming Leads to Legalism
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This post is part 2 in a new blog series that I have entitled “the wilderness between legalism and grace,” in which I talk about the part of my life when I struggled between rejection of legalism and fully embracing God’s grace in my life. You can read the introduction to this series here this post, some self-observations about legalism, and come to a better understanding of how I define legalism here in this post, what is legalism?” This post speaks to how imagery of a broken heart taught me about shame.
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I was in Kindergarten the first time I ever remember feeling shame. The punishment system that my teacher used when her students misbehaved was to have them stand under a big red broken heart for a set amount of time.
I don’t remember what I had done or what rule I had broken. I don’t remember how long I had to stand there in front of the class. I don’t remember if I cried. I just remember how I felt.
Hurt. Embarrassed. Ashamed.
There were other students in the class that had to stand under the broken heart every day or even multiple times a day.
But this was my first time under the broken heart, because I was a good girl.
No, this isn’t happening! Not to me!
Fourteen years later the same good little girl got in trouble again.
It was my freshman year of Bible college, and I had broken a rule.
I had asked ahead of time for an exception to the rule, as there were some extenuating circumstances that I felt warranted such an exception. (I never did follow the “it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission” line of thought.) I was met with different answers from different authorities and was told different conditions of how and when the rule could be broken.
At the moment that I broke the rule, the fact that I was breaking a rule was the furthest thing from my mind. In fact, I even thought I had permission.
It turns out that I was mistaken, confused. I had misinterpreted what one of the authorities had said and in so doing directly broken the rule.
It wasn’t intentional. But it didn’t matter.
Words like rebellion, deception, independent spirit, and discipline problem were hurled at me and felt like a sucker punch to my gut.
“Deliberately, maliciously disobeyed!” felt like a knife.
As much as I know they are lies crafted by the devil, I don’t think I will ever be able to forget those words or how they made me feel.
I didn’t mind being called out for breaking a rule. I didn’t even mind the punishment that they doled out. But having my intentions and my heart so sorely misjudged thrust me into a dark world of pain and confusion.
No, this isn’t happening. I’m a good girl! I want to obey! I have a truly submissive heart! I even tried to do the right thing about being honest about my intentions from the beginning instead of sneaking around! If they only knew the real me…if they would only understand that I didn’t mean to do this!!
There was no broken heart to stand under. Instead I sat in the front seat of my brother’s car looking up at a beautiful blue sky filled with big bright puffy clouds. It mocked my pain. My perfect world was crumbling down in pieces all around me, and the sun still had the audacity to shine down on me.
This was the pivotal moment when I was thrust into the wilderness. When I realized that even the slightest misstep can make you out to be a very bad person. When I realized I would never be good enough.
I stood under a big invisible broken heart and received this message:
“Your heart and intentions don’t matter – only your actions and how closely you can follow our system of rules. If you break the rules, you have a rebellious heart. Cased closed.”
And this is one of the biggest lies of the legalistic system: that actions trump intentions.
While I took my punishments with grace and little protest and apologized to everyone I had wronged with tears–I fought this falsehood with all of my being.
A war had been started within my soul. Part of me that believed that their opinion of me was also God’s opinion: that I really was a rebellious person if I didn’t follow their rules. But part that knew that there was a much bigger picture than that, that God cared more about me and my heart than how closely I followed a set of rules. The fight raged between these two ideas within me for several years to come.
Even good girls break rules. Sometimes they can even break rules and still have a heart that wants to please God. When they try to please God and are told it’s simply not good enough it produces a heavy load of guilt and shame that stays with them day after day.
Please come back tomorrow as I will be sharing how this experience affected me and how I viewed myself, and what happened in my life as a result.
Have you ever experienced this lie in action? Have you ever been judged to be a rebel because of your actions when your intentions were in the right place? What were the results in your life? I’d love to hear your story!
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To view all the posts in this blog series, visit the landing page.
Next post, part 3: hiding in shame, packing up my dreams
44 Comments
Desiray
Those who are born again are no longer under the law we are under grace…thanks be to God…for the law would of killed us…and still to this day so many Christians believe they are under the law or legalism..legalism comes when man believes he must do something in order to receive grace…thanks for sharing your post with your readers.
Aprille
Yes! What you have just said is what I have finally come to realize.
Desiray
Praise God I am so happy to hear that….
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Mish
I just started reading this series, and I have to say, this post really hit hard. Every time I’ve ever done something wrong in my life (real or perceived), that shame is the part that sticks like a knife in my throat. I’ve always been a rebel (not a bad one, just never the “right sort”, y’know?), and the shame I had to endure from well meaning family and friends finally drove me as far as I could humanly get from them. I was never able to accept myself as “good enough”. It’s only in the last several months that I’ve started to come to the realization that maybe God made me “different” because it’s just the vision He had in mind when He put me together in the first place…no matter what the rest of my family thinks of me. I’ve accepted that I have God’s grace in all my faults and flaws…but it’s still very hard to remember it some days.
I can’t wait to read the rest of this series. It’s so beautiful in its simplicity. Thank you for having the heart to do this.
Aprille
Thank you so much for reading and sharing your experiences! I hope that, in time, God reveals the beautiful plan he has for you and you can find freedom and peace in it!
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Lukewarm Laodicea
“And this is one of the biggest lies of the legalistic system: that actions trump intentions. ”
This is what I’m working through right now. I was taught this not so much as a “law vs grace” issue, but as a “truth vs error” issue. They kind of overlap, but the emphasis is different.
So you can be doing great things but if your doctrine is off, it doesn’t really matter.
Thank you again for sharing. Seeing another person work through the same issues, and seeing it out in words is very…freeing.
LL
tonycutty
Jesus wept with you on that day. But by His Grace it was your first step towards freedom!
Aprille
Yes. So much yes.
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Rebecca
I have just found this blog through a Google search. I know it was God who led me here.
I could recite your story without reading it, because this too was my life. I grew up in a church exactly like yours. From birth I have had a “rebellious” nature, according to the adults in my life, and they let me know it often. My childhood was spent being constantly berated by the church-I wasn’t “behaved” enough during service, I had a “sassy mouth” because I constantly asked questions instead of just dutifully accepting what adults demanded of me, and on and on. I never did the “right thing” in their eyes and was constantly told how they are praying for me to get back on track with God.
I have a vivid memory of imagining God in Heaven standing next to a whiteboard. Every time I did something bad or wrong, I imagined He would put a giant “X” next to my name and shake his head in disapproval. Grace was never a concept I learned. I thought of God the way I thought of all of the adults in my life-constantly disappointed in me, ashamed of me, and angry with me. Only it was made worse in that I still had the insight to understand what they told me in church-that only God could send me to Heaven. I was firmly convinced that in order to get to Heaven, I had to be a perfect golden child and I knew I never would be. I spent the majority of my teens and some of my adult years struggling with this. I still struggle today, although I am trying to really grasp the reality of His grace.
I would love to have a conversation with you privately some time about this if you are ever willing. I have never met someone with an experience like mine and always thought I was the one outside of “God’s will” no matter what I tried to do right.
It is extremely comforting to read your experience. Thank you so much for sharing it. It is just what I need.
Aprille
Feel free to send me an email at aprille.beautifulinhistime@gmail.com or message me through my Facebook page, Beautiful Messy Faith.