Save Your Photos Day: When Shame Blots You Out of the Picture

thanks, Edie

Look towards him and shine with joy; no longer hang your heads in shame.

Psalm 34:5, New English Bible

Hello, readers. I am breaking tradition today and sending you this post a day early. According to the National Day Calendar, today is Save Your Photos Day.

In a recent conversation with a friend, I was reminded of the power of shame to blot out our faces, to erase the photos where we once smiled and laughed.

The photos where we belonged to a group of other smiling people, arms draped safely and comfortably around each other.

Or the photos we didn’t take because we just didn’t think we were worth it.

The first yearbook I remember receiving was in elementary school. I will never forget the horror I felt the moment I saw my face in the class photo. I could not bear to look at myself. I hated myself. Taking an ink pen, I carefully, completely blotted out my face. I continued this habit through middle school and into high school. 

I didn’t know that the shameful things happening to me in secret at home were not evident on my face, my body, my very breath, for those around me to see. The evil I experienced was imprinted on me, mind, body, and soul, it seemed. I was a symbol of shame to myself, and I assumed to everyone else. So I blotted out my face, hoping no one would see the shame, not even me.

The one suffocated by shame becomes an anathema even to herself.

When we hear of a child cutting himself in places on his body where his parents won’t notice, shame is hiding at the root.

When an adolescent stops eating, shame is lurking in the shadows.

When a loved one hides in addiction and lies to survive, shame has him shackled.

Any act of hatred toward one’s self is evidence of shame’s contemptible work. #shame #insteadofshamehonor Click To Tweet

Shame’s signature lie is that you don’t matter, you have no value. This is completely contrary to the real truth about you and me.

God created each person with value. In the beginning, man and woman knew no shame. Their value was unquestioned. They walked in complete harmony with the Creator. 

Then the value of God Himself was questioned by His enemy, and His creation made the fateful choice to question God’s value and their own. An emotional response to original sin, shame made its entrance on the stage of humanity and it has crept through the eras, passing down its poison from generation to generation. 

It was never meant to be this way. 

Shame is no match for the Creator who gave us honor from the start. #coveredglory #insteadofshamehonor Click To Tweet

He sent the Messiah Jesus not only to forgive our sin but to abolish our shame. Jesus defeated shame when He died on the cross and rose alive and free from its bonds. 

We can be free again.

God sees beneath the blotted ink covering our faces. And He calls us very different names than the painful ones we have come to believe about ourselves over the years. Names like Beautiful, Accepted Not Rejected, My Delight is in Her, Safe, Stable, Good, Loved, Worth it All.

On this Save the Photos Day, take a while alone with the One who made you in His image. With your hand in His, look over the photos you have blotted out. Talk to Jesus about the ones you never took. And let Him help you start a new photo album.

Additional Scriptures:

Isaiah 61:7

Romans 9:33

Isaiah 45:4

Isaiah 50:7

Isaiah 62:4-5

Lord, shame hurts and it is hard to beat. Hard to believe that what You say about me is true. But help my unbelief, and give me the courage to heal and start a new photo album with You. Amen.

To learn more about how to overcome shame, read my new book, Covered Glory: The Face of Honor and Shame in the Muslim World available wherever books are sold.